• LISTE ART FAIR BASEL 2023

    Yousha Bashir & Rana Dehghan
  • At Liste Art Fair Basel 2023, Dastan presents a duo exhibition of works by Rana Dehghan (b. 1986, Tehran) and Yousha Bashir (b. 1989, Manila). The fair will be open to public view from June 12, 2023, through June 18. This is Dastan’s fourth presentation at Liste. The electric landscapes of Bashir and the glazing fiberglass sculptures of Dehghan explore the notion of the ‘self’ about one’s surroundings. In doing so, they reevaluate such concepts as materiality, dichotomies such as the digital/virtual versus the real, self vs. shadow, awareness vs. spontaneity, and spirit vs. body. 

  • The traditional portrayal of ghosts as a floating draped white sheet with cartoonish circles for eyes in Rana Dehghan's fiberglasses refers to her artistic process. Ironically when the ghost's intangible and virtual entity is covered, it gets revealed. With a career spanning several media and approaches, from painting to sculpture, video, animation, and installation, Rana often playfully mixes materials and concepts into fantasies, fleeting sensations, or fierce encounters. 

    Through the use of objects, Dehghan makes the intangible tangible, much like the imagery of a ghost, with a clever play of irony and concealment. Rana Dehghan’s sculptures reflect a ‘self’ finding itself in an irreconcilable state. She summons what appear to be ghosts or spirits. At times the artist wants to get away from them and, at other times, use them to build a sanctuary for others. As such, they can be thought of as giving objective reality to different manifestations of the soul. 

  • Rana Dehghan, Overview

    Rana Dehghan

    Overview

    Rana Dehghan (b. 1986, Tehran, Iran) is a sculptor and painter living and working in Tehran. She received her BA in Painting from Azad University of Tehran (2013).

    The art of Rana Dehghan investigates the made-up and the real after "the death of objects". Objects fall out of their "product" status after some time to become "matter" again. She removes and alters objects from the "common world of images" to use them as tools for self-expression. Despite alterations, deformations and augmentations, these objects stay connected to their origins through clues left by the artist and they defy their normal state as much as they defy definitions since they are outside of their intended state of purpose.

    Rana Dehghan has held three solo shows and participated in a number of group exhibitions, including Asia Art Week (Dubai, 2019), “Opening” (Abi Gallery, 2016), “Punishment” (Delgosha Gallery, 2017), and “Eat My Fear, Chew My Name” (Delgosha Gallery, 2018).

  • Contrary to Dehghan, who tries to mold human emotions into objects, the artistic process for Yousha Bashir is meticulously systematized, engineered, and leveled. His images are more or less musically composed as he pieces together elements within a system. He begins by sketching out digital images, completes multiple fragmented peaks, and ends up with a futuristic landscape. Forms thread the line between virtual and physical means of being. Geometric shapes in his acrylic on canvas paintings indicate a distinct, objective presence, but what surrounds them —pixelated or curved lines— bring fluidity to the surface. The play of abstraction and depiction in the works of Bashir hints at the self’s precarious relationship with inner and outer landscapes. 

  • Yousha Bashir, Overview

    Yousha Bashir

    Overview

    Yousha Bashir (b. 1989) is an Iranian post-digital artist currently active in his hometown of Tehran. He studied Visual Arts at Farhangian University (2011). Bashir works across media to create paintings, sculptures, and installation pieces.

    Yousha Bashir is a dynamic artist whose work has undergone significant changes in style and output. His landscape series (Inner Landscapes, Outer Landscapes, Ultimate Landscapes, The Infinite Continuum) and his self-portraits are relational studies of form with the frame (the viewers' perception) and the space surrounding the frame. He thus challenges the painting’s solid framework by exploring the relationship between the digital realm and the physicality of painting. His vibrant and luminous imagery question the definition of the creative space and the creative loci in the digital age and computer graphics. The self and how it is separated from the real world is one of the central explorations throughout his works. With the loss of image clarity in the process of a digital translation, he arrives at frames that open to a new two-dimensional world defined by restrictions and opportunities each possesses.

    Bashir has held six solo exhibitions, including his latest, "The Infinite Continuum" (Parallel Circuit, October-November 2021), and participated in more than 30 exhibitions, including at the Frieze Los Angeles (2022) as well as Art Dubai (2020 and 2021) with Dastan's Basement.

  • Installation Views

    of Yousha's previous exhibitions