Talar Aghbashian at The approach with Marfa' during CONDO 2024
Everything is a tree,
Everything is painted, everything everywhere.
My landscapes slowly transition. I catch myself painting figures. As I start from a structure, a shape that can stand or be. A monster? A transient vampire, that lives through the times, where bits of landscape gets stuck to these character-structures, in some cases the bits of landscape takes over, and it -the landscape, becomes the subject; still, like it’s figure counterparts being as much a living breathing thing, as it indeed is! So far removed we are from the living-landscape that we would otherwise miss. The painting looks at you and we want to peer back.
The set like framing of the works points to the space within the frame, to this transient space. As the painting pulls together, and I help it on its legs, and see it revealed. The bunching-of-stuff process, helps the painting have a flow and movement, whisked in time, mirroring the ephemerality of life, of all beings and non-beings alike, of eroding cultures and lands, of places I known and never knew.
Speedy drawing lines imbue freedom to the painting, it is an integral part of it. The harder cartoon-like outlines accent the forms, renders it ironical, witty, whilst stripping it down, and amplifying, it lends it a reality that is told in the way of painting.
Everything is a tree,
Everything is painted, everything everywhere.
My landscapes slowly transition. I catch myself painting figures. As I start from a structure, a shape that can stand or be. A monster? A transient vampire, that lives through the times, where bits of landscape gets stuck to these character-structures, in some cases the bits of landscape takes over, and it -the landscape, becomes the subject; still, like it’s figure counterparts being as much a living breathing thing, as it indeed is! So far removed we are from the living-landscape that we would otherwise miss. The painting looks at you and we want to peer back.
The set like framing of the works points to the space within the frame, to this transient space. As the painting pulls together, and I help it on its legs, and see it revealed. The bunching-of-stuff process, helps the painting have a flow and movement, whisked in time, mirroring the ephemerality of life, of all beings and non-beings alike, of eroding cultures and lands, of places I known and never knew.
Speedy drawing lines imbue freedom to the painting, it is an integral part of it. The harder cartoon-like outlines accent the forms, renders it ironical, witty, whilst stripping it down, and amplifying, it lends it a reality that is told in the way of painting.
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Talar AghbashianAll His Possessions , 2023Oil on canvas106x91cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Talar AghbashianMessy Greetings, 2023Oil on canvas12 x 76 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Talar AghbashianBetween Two Worlds, 2023Oil on canvas122x91cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Talar AghbashianPropped Up , 2023Oil on canvas76 x 61 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
About the artist
Born in Beirut in 1981, Talar Aghbashian lives and works in London UK.
Aghbashian is primarily a painter, her works explore the human intervention within the landscape. Where her approach to both, painting and landscape is from a place of discovery. Her paintings, explore the human relationship to the landscape, and the projection of one onto the other. Talar Aghbashian graduated from the Lebanese University of Fine Arts (BA) 1999-2003, Central St. Martins College of Art and Design London (MA) 2007-2008, and Birkbeck University of London 2009-2010. She was a recipient of AGBU grant NY, and Benlian Trust grant London, 2007-2008. Aghbashian has thought at different schools, and MUT University in Lebanon 2003-2007, and has worked as a curator at the NHM and the V&A Museums London 2009-2010.
She has been exhibiting since 1998 in the UK, Germany, Lebanon, and the UAE. Her group exhibitions include: Musee Nicolas Sursock Beirut 2003, 2004, 2007, Barge House 2008, Cordy House 2008, Coningsby Gallery 2009, Brunei Gallery SOAS 2010, Bearspace Gallery and Mall Galleries in 2012, Turps Gallery 2016, Walker Art Gallery-Liverpool Biennal, Sluice Biennal 2017 London, Paris Internaternationale 2018, Heartbreak exhibition 58th Venice Biennale 2019, Phillips 2019, Natural Environment space 2020, First edition of South South- Veza, and Marfa In collaboration with Galleries Curate, and Terrace Gallery in 2021. Solo exhibitions include The French Cultural Center Lebanon 2005. Blind Finds at the Running Horse- Beirut 2013, Site/Sight at Carbon 12- Dubai 2015, and Transposition at Marfa projects- Beirut 2018. In 2016 Aghbashian was a recipient of the John Moores prize, UK.
