Jalal Parviz

Nature has long been one of the most enduring sources of inspiration for artists, yet such an engagement has never been uniform or univocal. An artist’s turn toward nature may at times constitute an attempt at decipherment: to read an order presumed to lie beneath the surface of phenomena; at other times, it may lead to demystification, reducing nature to what can be seen and measured; and at still others, contrary to both, the artist may rediscover a certain enigma and meaning precisely through this encounter. It is this difference in the mode of looking that renders “nature” a different concept for each artist. Here, nature is not approached as an integrated whole, but through the selection of a frame and the exclusion of a part of it; what is seen is always a fragment of something larger that remains beyond the frame.

Jalal Parviz is among those artists whose encounter with nature engages the question of mystery and its presence within nature.

In the works by Parviz presented as part of the “Continuum” initiative, one encounters a gaze marked by a certain enigmatic quality. The segmentation and cropping of the works heighten this quality; what remains outside the frame is left unseen and unspoken, drawing the image toward ambiguity. In the two photographs depicting the bodies of horses, what we see is less the body of an animal than the body as such, as though it carries a secret within it. A fragment of reality that, precisely through its relation to the body and embodiment, opens onto the possibility of imagination, even though it is not the familiar human body.

In the other photograph, a certain simplicity initially presents itself; it is as though we are looking at a fragment of nature, a stretch of vegetation that refers to no specific place and yet remains familiar. But even at first glance, something more seems to be at work: a mystery concealed behind the bushes. The photograph’s black-and-white tonality intensifies this concealment, as what has receded into the darkness of the tonal values may elude the eye, compelling the viewer to look more closely. Thus, a gaze that begins as fleeting becomes slower and more searching.

It is here that the point raised at the outset becomes clearer: the enigmatic quality of these images arises less from what they show than from what is absent from the image yet remains perceptibly present. Details within the image extend beyond the frame and engage the viewer, drawing the gaze toward what remains outside the frame (the blind field), as though what cannot be seen were also part of the image. In this way, the image shifts from a closed fragment into an opening for investigation and imagination.