Lot 32: UNTITLED

MOHAMMED ALI TARAGHIJAH (Iranian, b. 1943)
UNTITLED
signed and dated 'MA Taraghijah 2006'; signed and dated in Farsi (lower centre)
oil on canvas
59 x 78¾in. (150 x 200cm.)
Painted in 2006

Figures of horses, roosters and rural Iranian symbols populate Taraghijah's tranquil paintings. Taraghijah's compositions oscillate between translucency and opacity, the images at once subtle but defined, revealing yet mysterious. His evocative work is strong in poetic overtones, the weightlessness animal and human figures, and even the mountains, are freed from the earthly constraint of gravity, on a journey to paradise.
In the present composition is highly abstracted, unusually so in Taraghijah's oeuvre. There is a high degree of ambiguity in the sinuous outlines, which at once describe both horses and human figures.