Massoud Arabshahi

As one of the most imaginative Iranian painters, who employs a wide range of media from gold leaf to oil, symbols from ancient Mesopotamia to the most universal ones , brushstrokes ranging from heavy impasto to the very lightest, Arabshahi's magnificent production is, nevertheless, constructed around one simple idea: the search for purity and glamour.

This search leads him first to a historical investigation. He neither makes an attempt to glorifying a supposed golden past against a lifeless and pale present, nor does he attempt to observe the historical relevance of the past to the present, but to understand what is the essence of things belonging to the past that makes them survive.

What is this magic that makes something a heritage? The result of this first exploration is the use of symbols such as lotus, wheel, shinning sun, tree of life, pseudo-cuneiform rearranged with more universal symbols such as circles, squares, curves, and spirals to assert that the aim is not a mere reproduction of the vestige of the past. The outcome is a beautiful manifestation of complicities between past and present, the external and internal emotions and, above all, language and desire. A wonderful series of these frames are used to illustrate verses from the Avesta , the sacred book of Zoroastrians.

In 1980's, Arabshahi chooses a more modern context for reading the ancient past. In addition to mathematical signs, flesh symbol, and architectural plans come together to complete the set of used symbols, and the lines become sharp and razor thin. The use of new material such as aluminum and the hint given by the visible constructions that fix the new to the old attest that in his search for purity, Arabshahi relies more on the intellectual and the synthetic constructions rather than the natural and transcendental. During this period the history is reduced to its minimal expression, which is represented merely with gold leaf, a connecting web.

- Massoud Arabshahi, Avesta

cuneiform and mathematical symbols are faded out; the only things that remains is the universal symbols that dominate his work, thus gives a much more stable sensation to the paintings. Although, this mystic period did not last long it opened a new horizon in the work of Arabshahi, that from here on takes a more abstract path while indicating some impressionistic influence.
- These few lines are largely indebted to an unpublished paper written in the occasion of Arabshahi's last exhibition in Los Angeles and given by its writer Abbas Daneshvari, Professor of Art History, California State University , Los Angeles to the painter. The paper in entitled “Massoud Arabshahi A Life in Forms”.