“I Will Give My Horses Sigh To The Birds”

This horse, this black horse, where is it galloping to?

Who is leading this horse?

Is the horse hers or not?

A black horse, somewhere, in some world, a woman, naked, white like an angel’s figure, riding the black horse. Where is she heading?

What perspective is she aiming at? FREEDOM, freedom warranted by desire or not?

Naked like a historical and cultural view of what has captivated her.

ESCAPES?

Does she want to be emancipated or does she dream beyond all of these?

What does a white naked body signify?

Or, as the ones before us did, symbolize ideal based on archaic myths:

good & evil, angel & devil, beauty & beast, light & dark.

Mithraism and Christianity.

How does the painter view the world behind the canvas?

Many, many questions come to mind.

The fact is that such a glorious image invites me, you and …….to a THINKING FEAST.

A narration about a narrative world that surrounds us.

I sit in front of the painting (or the image of the painting) and it’s aura occupies my day to day world.

Every line, lines and color combination takes me out of my routine and sings another tune from another realm.

I step into the painting, study it, slowly, with difficulty but with the pleasure of understanding, digesting and having a dialog with it.

Her eyes, lips, bridle in her hand, mane & hair mingled, her body………..the contrast of colors, the dialectic of colors. My mind is filled with paths & ways. The canvas becomes the source for new thoughts.

As if the duality that has created the world’s pattern which still flows in our thoughts and actions, flows in this painting. Duality of black and white, woman and beast, dream and real. This dialogue takes me to Persian mythology: Rain (woman) and Darkness (horse). Pairing of the two: UNITYand FREEDOM.

The canvas, at the same time, promises the breaking of duality.

Look at the way she sits on the horse, look at her eyes, lips and smile.

She does not ride the horse, she caresses the horse, which inspires abandoning the duality. At the same time it reflects our dependence on duality.

She rides on.

The artist paints our contradictory world as such. He takes us to another world through the creation of color and perspective, a world that transforms the pleasure of exploration into a sensual-visual experience. It also breaks the bitter rule of daily reality that captures us.

For us stepping into the artistic arena is such an envious and exceptional experience. Through it’s dimensions and skills it attracts us, distracts us, takes us on a journey dialog with the canvas and upon the return from this journey your world will not be the same.

Another presence, another universe. It is unfortunate we lack the artistic tune that would complement the acts which drive our daily actions; the artist is different in this way, he lives and sings with such a tune. In another word, the world we live in is still deprived of artistic melody as the dominant force.

However, it is pleasurable to open a dialogue with the canvas because it promises the colors and desires of freedom. Dreams and desires of an angel, a woman: to go and go and become ANOTHER. This is the power of art, becoming other, become another.

The black horse manifests what is concealed by daily affairs of life.

The painter has chosen the colors, lines and surfaces. He has created a world that gives us the opportunity to CHOOSE.

The canvas is pregnant with the future.

It shows us the gap between who we are and who we want to be which in itself is innovative and prophetic.

And so is the woman’s attempt to ride through the existential realm that is FREEDOM.

Ashuri