A Moon Shaped Artist

Dastan presents an exhibition of recent works by Milad Mousavi titled "A Moon Shaped Artist" at Dastan's Basement. The exhibition will open on Friday, 6 November, 2020 -with a preview on Thursday, November 5, and will be on display for public viewing until November 20. His third solo exhibition at Dastan, this presentation mainly features oil paintings on canvas along with water color and ink works on paper.

Born in 1987 (Tehran, Iran), Milad Mousavi studied Economics at Allameh Tabataba'i University. Mousavi has been painting professionally since 2012. is work has been inspired by his surrounding world, society, and other artistic mediums such as cinema and animation. In his paintings, he combines a variety of materials and techniques such as drawing and color pencils, acrylic, oil paint, and pen.

"A Moon Shaped Artist" includes Milad Mousavi's first attempt at employing a single medium (oil paint) in his paintings, and thus, marks a shift in the artist's practice both in technique and approach. Best known for his paintings and illustrations which bring together collective as well as personal themes and references, the artist has taken a new step toward featuring his own figure in his recent series. The presence of the artist's figure, as an active, characterized subject matter in the images, infuses them with a curious personal tone reminiscent of memories and experiences the artist has as an observer of the world. Whether an image, an event, a novel or a dream, this series of personal references creates a background of architectural fantasy that addresses the expressive imagination of the artist.

Artist's Note

Whenever I sleep, or wake up, or start dreaming while I’m not sleeping, or dream that I’m having a dream while I’m sleeping, whenever I’m having or not having tea with bread and cheese, or when I’m tidying up my library to find a book I‘m not sure I actually have, whenever I’m deep into daydreaming and I’m not even aware of the fact that I’m staring into space, or when I’m whistling and feeling sorry for the world, thinking of all the pain around me or – all that aside –when a cat passes by a bench I’m sitting on and starts to cough a little and keeps walking indifferently, yes in all these situations, I’m imagining myself, with a brush in my hand and an ocean of paint, any kind of paint I want, even those that I don’t want, with a white screen of a limited size that I can infinitely expand with the forms that I draw on it and I try to paint these forms in their right color, not the artificial colors I usually see when I dream, or wake up, or dream when I’m awake, or dream that I’m sleeping and I’m having a dream , or whenever I’m having tea with bread and cheese, or I’m not having it, or when I’m tidying up my library and thinking of all this pain. I should find the color specific to this pain.

Mehran Mousavi