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Lot Essay
By looking at the portrait paintings and the spiral-shaped canvases of Y.Z. Kami, one feels overwhelmed by the spiritual atmosphere created by the artist. Firstly known for his captivating portraits of intriguing characters, Kami soon aspired to recreate the feeling of wholeness echoed in the Sufi belief by disposing bricks, sometimes stamped with Farsi script, in the shape of ever-widening circles laying on the ground. His installations soon led the way to his acclaimed body of work on canvas, Endless Prayers of which the present work is a fine example.
Y.Z. Kami's canvas Blue Dome I is delicately ornamented with flat brick-shaped cut-outs in dense sky blue. The artist glues each of these carefully and gracefully onto the surface of the canvas in spiraling patterns, thus reminiscing both the Islamic domes and the sema, the ritual dance of the whirling dervishes who aim at reaching to God through the act of spinning. Kami has indeed been highly influenced by the thirteenth-century Persian Poet Rumi and the present composition suggests his philosophical and spiritual inspirations as well as his openness to the world and to different mystical trends.
The end result of his repetitive process is a silent, almost meditative, work of art that evokes the cyclical nature of the ritual daily prayers through concentrically revolving rows of paper, as if each of the cut-out elements held within themselves a prayer. Rich in its abstraction, the present work recalls the colours of infinity, as if to allude to a mystical void in which the artist reaches perfection. The work is an elegant and hypnotising composition allowing the viewer to feel harmony and serenity.
Y.Z. Kami is one of the most sought-after artists in today's contemporary art scene from the Middle East. Born in Iran in 1956, he now lives and works in New York. His works have been widely exhibited internationally at venues including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the 52nd Venice Biennale and are featured in important private and public collections across borders.
Y.Z. Kami's canvas Blue Dome I is delicately ornamented with flat brick-shaped cut-outs in dense sky blue. The artist glues each of these carefully and gracefully onto the surface of the canvas in spiraling patterns, thus reminiscing both the Islamic domes and the sema, the ritual dance of the whirling dervishes who aim at reaching to God through the act of spinning. Kami has indeed been highly influenced by the thirteenth-century Persian Poet Rumi and the present composition suggests his philosophical and spiritual inspirations as well as his openness to the world and to different mystical trends.
The end result of his repetitive process is a silent, almost meditative, work of art that evokes the cyclical nature of the ritual daily prayers through concentrically revolving rows of paper, as if each of the cut-out elements held within themselves a prayer. Rich in its abstraction, the present work recalls the colours of infinity, as if to allude to a mystical void in which the artist reaches perfection. The work is an elegant and hypnotising composition allowing the viewer to feel harmony and serenity.
Y.Z. Kami is one of the most sought-after artists in today's contemporary art scene from the Middle East. Born in Iran in 1956, he now lives and works in New York. His works have been widely exhibited internationally at venues including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the 52nd Venice Biennale and are featured in important private and public collections across borders.