Paintings by Kourosh Bahar

Recently a friend prompted me to explain myself with regards to my work. This has always been a difficult task for me, to formulate what I do. Here is my response to the best of my ability to make something intangible, tangible…

I always start from the present. It’s really a record of where I am at any given moment. I tend to return to similar themes in cycles. One could call it seasonal.

Ultimately I am interested in creating space or multiplicity of spaces in a given painting where the eye keeps moving & doesn’t get stuck, and I experiment with different forms & devices to achieve that. I always start at the beginning. As if I am painting for the first time. It never gets easier for me.

My work at one level can be seen as an archeology of the psyche. A form of digging to uncover/discover. Everything in the painting is subject to change until each element finds its comfortable place in a balanced/harmonious construction. [That is Beauty.]

I have stopped drawing a distinction between abstraction & the figurative. A good painting in my mind has elements of both in varying degrees. The distinction is purely external and has nothing to do with a painter’s work. A maker’s only task is to make.