“A Dance of Letters” by Kourosh Ghazimorad

What we can perhaps call the “modernist” movement in Iranian calligraphy started some 40 years ago as part of the aesthetic revolution in Iran. The technical skills perfected during centuries of practice by great calligraphers were combined with modernist expressive notions to create surprisingly harmonious results. Since then, Iranian calligraphers have pushed the traditional limitations of paper and material(ink & tools) and have successfully produced remarkable art works using materials as diverse as tar, gold leaves, bleach, and so on. The fluid and spontaneous shapes created by Kourosh Ghazimorad are yet another wonderful example of this marriage of old and new. His works present us with a splendid ‘dance of letters’, in which the letters themselves have been minimised to their essential forms, creating a striking type of abstract calligraphy. His work experience as a graphic artist allows him more freedom and movement in composition, as well as the use of vivid colours. Yet at the same time, the strength of his lines betrays years of intense training as a traditional calligrapher.

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