Mohsen Keiany

Mohsen Keiany was born in Shiraz in 1970. Having shown a talent for art, he completed his secondary education, became a teacher and gained a scholarship to study art at Esfahan University. He secured a Master's degree and then lectured at Shiraz University. An award-winning artist, Keiany has exhibited over 50 times internationally. He has exhibited 35 times in the UK, recently at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and his work has been reviewed by the BBC and many other newspapers. He now lives in Birmingham and is researching for his PhD thesis at the University of Central England.

Mohsen meditates in front of, and then feels his way around the canvas, cultivating the painting from intensely energetic mental pictures and sensations. Captured in ecstatic colour and texture, his paintings show the essence of the Sufi idea of equilibrium in nature. Perspective is treated as both plan view and horizontal. There is little or no foreground. Colour illuminates – it does not heat or cool. Shadow is omitted, and figures are spiritual, ghostly, tortured, decaying or dead. Sometimes mosaic or stained-glass lines hold up the painting. Although Keiany narrates via memory, he allows for abstract, even biblical, interpretation.

Western movements such as Expressionism and Surrealism, infuse his work. Mohsen's inspiration also comes from Iranian Painting, archaeology, Persian mythology, Islamic art particularly traditional Persian miniature painting and the landscape of Iran. Sufi Mysticism is a special influence. It is a fascinating exercise analysing his Persian paintings to identify their historical and cultural influences and spiritual and psychological meanings.