painting

Conference of the Birds 28, oil on panel, 20 x 20 inches (51 x 51 cm), 1999

The encounter between East and West, gesture and color

Natural and mystical processes inspire Ostovany’s practice on a daily basis, driving him on a personal journey of exploration through the alchemy of paint, color, light, texture and the poetics of space: a constant pursuit of a transcendent reality. Yari Ostovany was born in Iran in 1962 and moved to the United States at the age of 16 where he pursued his studies in Art first at the University of Nevada – Reno and further specialized at the San Francisco Art Institute where he gained his MFA in 1995. From that moment on, he has […]

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Yari Ostovany Exhibition at Joyce Gordon Gallery, Oakland, California 2020

Exhibition at Joyce Gordon Gallery, Oakland, CAReview by DeWitt Cheng In 1935, Jorge Luis Borges wrote a review of the 1932 novel “The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim” by Bombay lawyer Mir Bahadur Ali, a kind of spiritual detective story outlining the quest of a young Indian law student for enlightenment. At the end of his arduous travels amid the lowest castes, he “perceives some mitigation in this infamy: a tenderness, an exaltation, a silence in one of the abhorrent men,” and deduces that a faint diminution of the darkness is the distant reflection of “a man

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Pretty Is A Dangerous Thing

  April 18 2017 | Berkeley, CA This April, Tasha Ostrander of braveARTconsulting had the incredible pleasure of a studio visit with Yari Ostovany at his Bay Area studio. A discussion unfolded of various material and ethereal/mystical workings of creativity that go beyond pretty and into the realm of discovered beauty. Beauty is not always pretty but informs and sustains itself on a soul level as a teacher and a signifier of deeper levels of thought, feeling and aesthetics.Yari Ostovany paints as if music, pigment and safflower oil all share the same viscosity. A baritone

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Abstract Illusionism

DeWitt Cheng The term Abstract Illusionism was used in the 1970s and 1980s to describe a kind of contemporary trompe-l’oeil, fool-the-eye paintings; realistic shading and pictorial space were employed for abstract expressionist paint blobs and drips, creating a kind of hybrid of abstract and realist art. I use the term here to suggest the dual nature of these works, hovering between abstraction and representation. Yari Ostovany’s luminous abstractions, with their mists of colored vapor dispersed here and there by soft-edged vistas of paint drips running at right angles—the Cubist grid as orthogonal precipitation—may remind viewers

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luxunterra2015

LUXinTERRA – (2015)

A rumination on the push and pull of energies underground as they undulate and billow below the surface, manifesting as cracks/forms on the surface of concrete sidewalks, translating these interaction of energies into light, shone upon and/or emanating from within. Inkjet transfer of digital images of cracks in sidewalks with Encaustics applied on panels. Click here for more info and to place your order

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The Poetics of Memory – Yari Ostovany

Jeremy Morgan Painting and at times music meet in the wordless. In the work of Yari Ostovany it may be considered as a reality. His work reflects an ongoing research through pure action. That action finds valency between intellect and intuition, each work functional as a psychic archiving, a material realization that is born of both reflection and enactment. The work is redolent with a sense of possibility. Each committed artist one assumes is committed to the recognition that every creative act is bound to the notion of communication indeed the mystical communication of experience.

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Atmospheric Abstraction at Vorres Gallery

Barbara Morris, art ltd. Bay area-based artist Yari Ostovany has traveled far from his birthplace of Iran, which he left shortly after the beginning of the revolution, to his current home in Oakland. His journey has taken him through the MFA program at the San Francisco Art Institute, as well as a lengthy residence in Cologne, Germany. Ostovany’s medium to large-scale works are process-based and meditative, reflecting his interests in poetry and music, as well as a blending of Eastern and Western cultures. Chellehneshin 14 (2012) refers to a period of 40 days of praying

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The Socratic method in shape and color

Dr. Grant Leneaux The Latin poet Horace famously stated that the purpose of poetry is to produce “delectare et prodesse”, to delight and enlighten the reader or listener. Yari Ostovany’s work can be seen as a pictorial translation of that dictum. While his paintings are instantaneously and effortlessly compelling, they do not yield themselves fully at first view. Their “meaning” is not accessible on the surface. They make their demands on the viewer. Demands of a philosophical as well as aesthetic order. Both intellectual and emotional demands of a high order. Yari Ostovany is truly

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aine2010 catalog

Art in Embassies, Dushanbe, Tajikistan 2010

Art in Embassies (AIE), a U.S. Department of State program, creates vital cross-cultural dialogue and fosters mutual understanding through the visual arts and dynamic artist exchanges.AIE develops and presents approximately 60 exhibitions per year and has installed over 70 permanent art collections in more than 200 of the Department’s diplomatic facilities in 189 countries.To accomplish the mission, AIE engages over 20,000 international participants, including artists, museums, galleries, universities, and private collectors. More info here

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hwpb catalog

Hidden Wounds, Paper Bullets: Iranian Contemporary Art

Catalog from the 2009 exhibition at California State University, Fullerton Grand Central Art Center Curated by Elizabeth Little As a result of the Iranian Revolution of the 1970s, the artists participating in this exhibition explore western culture and Iranian traditions through their art. Unified by their cultural experiences, these artists offer insight into a community torn between democratic and theocratic values, and a Persian past and Islamic present.

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Die Poesie der Existenz; Malerei von Yari Ostovany

Dr. Christoph Kivelitz | > English translation by Dr. Joep Lameer  Yari Ostovany setzt sich in seinem Schaffen auf verschiedenen Ebenen mit der Erfahrung eines kulturellen Gedächtnisses auseinander. In Bildzyklen umkreist der Künstler assoziativ mythisch geprägte Motive, in denen die Frage nach dem Ursprung und der Sinnhaftigkeit des Lebens aufgeworfen wird. Hierzu gehören die”Vogelgespräche” und die Figur des Ikarus. Zwei weitere Bildzyklen versteht der Künstler als Hommage an Goya und Ezra Pound, deren Gedankenwelt ihn wesentlich in seiner abstrakten Bildsprache beeinflusst hat. Die”Vogelgespräche” beziehen sich auf eines der klassischen Werke der Sufi-Literatur, verfasst von Farid

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The Poetics of Existence; Paintings of Yari Ostovany

Dr. Christoph Kivelitz / English translation by Dr. Joep Lameer | > original German  In his creative activity, Yari Ostovany deals at various levels with the phenomenon of cultural  memory. Following his stream of consciousness, the artist revolves in cycles of paintings around themes that bear the mark of the myth and raise questions about the sense and origin of existence. Among these are the”Conference of the Birds” and the Icarus motif. The artist regards two further cycles as tributes to Goya and Ezra Pound, whose ideas have greatly influenced his abstract pictorial language. The

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