Painting series · 2026
Shirin Bathing
In "Shirin Bathing", I return to a scene from the story of Khosrow and Shirin, asking each time how this moment might take shape. The story is a starting point, but the image is not predetermined. With each painting, the placement of figures, the relationships between colours, and the boundaries between body and nature change—as though a familiar moment could be imagined repeatedly, taking a different form each time.
Shabdiz, Shirin’s black horse, appears in most of the works, connecting these different images. Sometimes his form is more clearly visible; elsewhere, it emerges among branches, bodies, and layers of colour. His presence preserves something of the story’s memory within the image, even where the scene moves away from its familiar appearance.
Khosrow’s gaze upon Shirin can also be felt within the paintings. Even without the observer being visibly present, this gaze turns a private moment of bathing into a scene exposed to view. For me, the distance between Shirin’s solitude and the gaze that enters it is part of this moment’s tension. The viewer encounters a similar situation before the painting: looking into a scene that does not reveal itself all at once.
Body, water, plants, and horse have no fixed boundaries in these paintings. Forms appear through one another, pass through each other, and combine to create new shapes. The spectral atmosphere of the works emerges from these relationships; a presence may become clear for a moment, then change as it extends into another colour or form. Through this movement, the act of seeing itself becomes part of the painting’s subject.
Each work offers another possibility for imagining this scene. Just as I discover a different image of Shirin bathing each time I paint, viewers can uncover new relationships and figures by lingering and returning. The story remains familiar, while its image remains open to transformation.
Wet Garden, 2026
