Ayyam Gallery London is pleased to announce Improbable Possibilities, a forthcoming solo show of British-Iraqi artist Athier. Applying theoretical physics as part of its conceptual basis, the exhibition will feature a recent series of paintings that offer visual interpretations of parallel dimensions and their access points while exploring the notion of absolutes and the potential of imagined realities.
Initially inspired by readings in string theory, Athier has created three distinct but related bodies of work, dividing his aesthetic investigation into a succession of visualised phenomena: Push and Pull; The Cut; and Eternal Balance. Collectively, the artist’s new paintings present a point of departure for a broader envisioning of solutions for the present and futuristic passageways to the unknown.
The painterly journey through space-time begins with canvases dominated by dynamic architectural elements and fluid tubular forms. These intersecting facets are bookended by entry and exit points: wormholes that the artist describes as, ‘an attempt to imagine the unimaginable as pure energy moving from one space through to another.’ In each painting, overlapping planes support a suspended transfer of energy, as the composition becomes the site of unconstrained forces.
The Cut depicts the movement of an organism through such portals. Deconstructed or ‘spaggetified’ in the interchange from one dimension to the next, forms collide as though implosion is inevitable; and yet approaching the final stage of this process signals the start of reconstruction — reaching a new dimension means a return to a complete state.
In Eternal Balance equilibrium is achieved. Chaos is contained and shapes fall into place. Floating masses appear anchored by the pull of centralised sources of energy. As the artist emphasises, the concept of balance is found in the essential functioning of the universe, at the atomic level, and resonates on a larger scale, as extremes are inevitably met with counteracting forces. Although abstracted and grounded in scientific theory, Athier’s works propose weighty philosophical inferences for today’s world, prompting viewers to contemplate new possibilities.