Artists You Should Know
Starting with a small, single guiding idea, Maysha Mohamedi’s minimal paintings offer seeming resolution and careful decision-making through an associative process. The artist sets her own limitations—how far her arm can reach, or toys instead of brushes—as parameters for her own experiments. She balances the liminal expectations of the artist with the rigorous approach of the neuroscientist she once was.
In trying to discover meaning, whether it be of the Sublime, or existential anxieties, Mohamedi gestates the idea into forms and shapes with an intuitive resonance. The bodily aspect to her movement and relationship to the canvas implies a performative element, as does the inclusion of everyday objects from her environment— objects through which she engages the paint. She makes a painting about making a painting, told through the narrative of her daily life. Her tool-box of moves and counter-moves set up their reading as self-reflexive but informal, a taxonomy of gesture that is non-monumental, poignant and intimate.
Although they play with symmetry, Mohamedi’s paintings skillfully avoid that deadening trap by allowing a wide latitude to the reflective aspects. The need for balance and order is never allowed to dominate the requirements of the painting. Compositional complexity is enhanced with these off-set versions of mirroring.
The raw backgrounds allow for a more conceptual reading of the stages and relationships between marks; heightening the delicacy and immediacy of the paintings while increasing the sense of transience and fragility. They are moments in time, staged for our consideration, ready to disentangle and disappear like smoke rings: www.mayshamohamedi.com. (MP)
About Post Author
