Shirazeh Houshiary

Since rising to prominence as a sculptor in the 1980s, Shirazeh Houshiary’s practice has swelled to encompass painting, installation, architectural projects and film. “I set out to capture my breath,” she said in 2000, to “find the essence of my own existence, transcending name, nationality, cultures.” Veils, membranes and mists are leitmotifs in work that tries to visualise modes of perception, spanning the scientific and the cosmic while drawing on sources as wide-ranging as Sufism, Renaissance painting, contemporary physics and poetry. Houshiary finds succour in the transformation of material: Arabic words, one an affirmation the other a denial, are pencil-stroked onto canvas so lightly, and clouded over by finely wrought skeins of pigment, that they morph in front of the naked eye and defy reproduction. So too, aluminium armatures and elliptical brick towers, charged with dynamic tension, appear different from every angle, as if negating their own presence; her commission for the East window of St Martin in the Fields, London, presents a cross, warped and spanning from a circular motif, as if reflected in water. “The universe is in a process of disintegration,” she says, “everything is in a state of erosion, and yet we try to stabilise it. This tension fascinates me and it’s at the core of my work” (2013).

Shirazeh Houshiary was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1955, where she attended university before moving to London, UK in 1974. She has a BA from Chelsea School of Art (1979) and lives and works in London, UK. She has had solo exhibitions at Lisson Gallery, New York (2017); Singapore Tyler Print Insitute, Singapore (2016); The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2007); Tate Liverpool, UK (2003); Museum SITE Santa Fe, NM, USA (2002); Islamic Gallery, British Museum, London, UK (1997); Magasin-Centre national d’art contemporain, Grenoble, France (1995), University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA (1994), Camden Arts Centre, London, UK (1993), Musee Rath, Geneva, Switzerland (1988), and in 2013, her exhibition 'Breath' was a celebrated Collateral Event of the 55th Venice Biennale in Italy. Major group exhibitions include Jesus College, Cambridge, UK (2017); Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini, Collezione Burri, Citta di Castello, Perugia, Italy (2016); University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI, USA (2014); Dayton Art Insitute, Dayton, OH, USA (2011); Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA (2007). She has also participated in numerous biennials including Cartagena deIndias, Colombia (2014); Kiev Biennale, Ukraine (2012); the 17th Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2010); and the 40th Venice Biennale, Italy (1982). She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1994.

Shirazeh Houshiary
Portal, 2018
Pigment and pencil on black Aquacryl on canvas on aluminium 120 x 120 cm 47 1/4 x 47 1/4 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Beguile, 2018
Pigment and pencil on black Aquacryl on canvas on aluminium 120 x 120 cm 47 1/4 x 47 1/4 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Alar, 2016
Glass and mirror-polished stainless steel 145 x 118 x 118 cm 57 1/8 x 46 1/2 x 46 1/2 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Trail, 2018
Pigment and pencil on white Aquacryl on canvas on aluminium 120 x 120 cm 47 1/8 x 47 1/8 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Effuse, 2017
Pencil and pigment on black Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium 120 x 120 cm 47 1/8 x 47 1/8 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Shroud, 2016
Pigment and pencil on black Aquacryl on aluminium 50 x 50 cm 19 3/4 x 19 3/4 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Christmas Tree, 2016/1993
Tree and gold leaf Photograph courtesy Joe Humphreys, Tate Photography.

Shirazeh Houshiary
Swift, 2016
Cast aluminium 132 x 84.5 x 35.2 cm 52 x 33 1/4 x 13 7/8 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Allegory of Sight, 2015
Cast painted stainless steel 43 x 120 x 43 cm 17 x 47 1/4 x 17 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Right of Spring, 2012
Pencil, pigment and black Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium 190 x 190 cm 74 7/8 x 74 7/8 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Deluge, 2012
Pencil, pigment and white Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium 120 x 120 cm 47 1/4 x 47 1/4 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Lacuna, 2011
Cast stainless steel 80 x 220 x 80 cm 31 1/2 x 86 5/8 x 31 1/2 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
String Quintet, 2011
Cast stainless steel Height 500 cm Height 196 7/8 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Commission for St Martin-in-the- Fields, London, 2008
Shirazeh Houshiary and Pip Horne
Etched mouth blown clear glass and shot peened stainless steel frame

Shirazeh Houshiary
Between, 2010/2011
White pencil, red and white pigment with white Aquacryl on black Aquacryl ground on canvas and aluminium panel 190 x 540 cm (diptych) 74.8 x 212.6 in (diptych)

Shirazeh Houshiary
Untitled, 2008
Blue and grey pencil on black Aquacryl on canvas 40 x 40 cm 15 3/4 x 15 3/4 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Quiver, 2008
Blue pencil on black Aquacryl on canvas 70 x 70 cm 27 5/8 x 27 5/8 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Coalesce, 2008
Blue pencil on white Aquacryl on canvas 28 x 19 cm 11 x 7 1/2 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
Bloom, 2006
Aluminium and steel 98.6 x 70.8 x 611.3 cm 38 7/8 x 28 x 240 5/8 in Photo: Hirofumi Tani

Shirazeh Houshiary
Undoing the Knot, 2008
Anodized aluminium bricks and polished stainless steel Height 658 cm, ellipse 99 x 75 cm Height 259 in, ellipse 39 x 29 1/2 in

Shirazeh Houshiary
White Shadow, 2005
Aluminium bricks and steel cable 405 x 66 x 47 cm 159 3/8 x 26 x 18 1/2 in

Shirazeh Houshiary

Exhibitions