Artist Houshiary explores origins, life in China museum debut

"My work has been a combination of many years of thinking and experimentation, where 'breath' has been the central theme," Houshiary said. "When you're oppressed, you can't breathe, so breath is very powerful. We all need to breathe. That is life."

Houshiary's other works in the exhibition all date back to the last three years and include ambitious new organic and architectonic sculptures in glass and aluminum, such as the nine-part Maelstrom (2022) that depicts the growth of life at a cellular level, as well as the spiraling, crystalline tower of Pneuma (2022). Recent paintings include the deep red interior worlds of Zygote (2022) with cosmic compositions in green and blue, where Houshiary's palette mimics nature's elemental force of growth – from algae and blood to air and water.

Houshiary's process, developed over the artist's 44-year career, begins by pouring pigment across canvases before adding layers of inscriptions on top of the sediments and shapes formed therein.

Houshiary, born in Shiraz, Iran, in 1955 before moving to London in 1974, rose to prominence as a sculptor in the 1980s and has since swelled to encompass painting, installation, architectural projects and film.

She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1994 and became a Royal Academician in 2022.

If you go:

Hours: 10 am to 5:30 pm, through May 7

Address: Gallery 2, Long Museum (West Bund), 3398 Longteng Avenue, Xuhui district, Shanghai