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Writen By Bavand Behpoor

Ali Nassir is a difficult painter. He is the opposite of a craftsman; masterstroke is expelled from his work. All undertakings for the finishing of an artwork (filling gaps, covering every blank bit of paper or canvas, an attempt at finding the ‘right’ tones or powerful lines that prove mastery of drawing) is absent from his paintings. Yet, Nassir is a precise painter: he only shows what the viewer needs to see. If portraying chaos is intended, only chaos is shown, without its constituents. If he is to show a male figure, he paints a man. When needed, he also portrays the hat, age or social status. If not, simply a man is painted. It is the same with colours. If he needs blue he puts it there. Certain paintings are elaborate yet any extra move is excluded. They are minimal in their process not their product and there is nothing minimalistic about them. They are devoid of any mystic serenity (feng shui of colours of forms) as well as pastoral qualities in its European sense (his subjective jungles are actually jungles remote from the arranged beauty of ‘landscape’. They have grown in themselves and for themselves indifferent to the viewer.) These are urban paintings, products of a contemporary world, very personal, solitary and independent: they only attend to what is outside them if it relates to their ‘self’. Ali Nassir’s paintings are the opposite of abstract painting: they build no surface, are rather layered down to their depth. They divert attention from their materiality. They are devoid of mathematical precision of abstract paintings, enjoying the crude solidity of scaffolds. They are not painted for the pleasure of any universal mind and remain self-assured and indifferent to perfection. They are not painted to make anywhere look good. They are paintings artist workshop not a gallery. To exhibit them is to exhibit diaries. They are persistent and stubborn: it is years now that they are following the same path, indifferent to receiving attention. Like a fair lady, they know their presence will be noticed. Ali Nassir’s paintings are the opposite of photography: they do not say, ‘See this’. They say not: ‘I have singled out a particular moment for you to see.’ They are windows to a mind incessantly observing in the same manner. They say, ‘You are given this opportunity to look into this particular moment of this particular mind. Other moments are presented in other paintings.’ It is meaningless to ask, which Nassir’s works are better paintings. They are different equivalent paintings. In works with a circular framework, he ignores the concept of a framework. One is gazing into a peep show of a mind. I like the man and woman of his paintings. The way they stand in the world.