Taha Afshar

“The Purpose of Light”
From 30 April – 11 June 2022

The Minster Gallery is pleased to announce “The Purpose of Light” a new Exhibition of works by Taha Afshar. This collection features oil paintings previously shown in 2019 at his solo exhibition in the 58th at the Venice Biennale.

His paintings seek to capture the delicate tension between the objective and the subjective, the particular and the universal, the momentary and the timeless. For Afshar, the process of painting seemingly operates as a form of meditation, where meaning is generated through the durational practice of working itself. Finished images thus reflect the thickness of human experience and sense perception, building layers of meaning into a single unique scene. Recent landscape paintings have drawn inspiration from Nordic landscapes, where he visits to paint. He makes reference to the acutely self-reflective nature of his work, citing a certain proximity to surrealist techniques of automatic writing.

The oil paintings from this exhibition span a period of 4 years between 2015 and 2019. With the exception of one series of British seascapes from Hayling Island, in Hampshire, the most of the rest of the paintings are Swedish landscapes. All of the paintings were started en plein air, and some finalized in his Hampshire studio.

Taha Afshar is an internationally exhibited painter and sculptor born and practicing in Hampshire, England. Light, with both its physical and metaphysical properties, is often the subject matter of his work.

Born in 1983, in Winchester, he studied Art and History of Art at Winchester College, graduating from University College London, and continuing to attain a PhD. Recent UK exhibitions have included shows at Cadogan Contemporary (2016) and the Jonathan Cooper Gallery (2016). In 2017, he exhibited at Asia House, London, supported by a panel from the British Museum and Courtauld Institute of Art. In 2018, he was shortlisted for the Sunny Art Prize and Royal Society of Marine Artists awards. 2018 saw his work exhibited in Italian, Russia and German institutions. He had his first solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2019.

His work can be found in many private and public art collections, such as the Hampshire County Council Contemporary Art Collection, Portsmouth Museum Art Collection, Winchester College, Monir Farmanfarmaian collection, Rose Issa collection, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation, Pickwell Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.