Talar Aghbashian - Transposition: Past
At once familiar and alien, landscapes are at the core of Aghbashian’s work. They seem to have been the theater of chaotic events left in a state of disturbing yet peaceful silence. An uncanny feeling is felt as one identifies with these anthropomorphic landscapes that speak of a fantasy place. In her paintings, flat parts of the landscapes or ‘cut-outs’ allude to kids’ pop-up books, reminiscent of Aghbashian’s childhood, and turn the two-dimensional surface into a skillfully layered one, populated by sculptural ruins. These images seem suspended in an in-between state, frozen after the occurrence of otherworldly phenomena, all the while propelling the viewer in a surrealist, sometimes futuristic dimension devoid of human life, as life itself has come to inhabit and animate the eerie landscapes. Time is not represented, it is perceived, as Aghbashian blurs all boundaries. She delves to understand the overlap and intersection of different narratives and explores the ambiguities of our times. As she builds up her paintings in layers and sands them back down, some remain transparent, others become dense, some blur, expand and shrink, get wiped, ever evolving and coexisting.

Talar Aghbashian

Born in Beirut in 1981, lives and works in London UK.
Aghbashian’s primarily a painter. 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 taught 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: Gamec Bergamo, 2024, Musee Nicolas Sursock Beirut 2003, 2004, 2007, Barge House 2008, Cordy House 2008, Conings by 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 Condo at The Approach with Marfa’, 2024, Solace of the Afterimage at Marfa’, 2023, 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.

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