• Nima Nabavi and Jason Seife

     

    Duality

  • The Third Line is pleased to announce Duality, featuring new works by artists Nima Nabavi and Jason Seife. Duality is a showing of two artists working together in symbiosis, a product of an enduring "art friendship". In ways both literal and metaphorical, the exhibition is a way of putting pen to paper on developments that were organically occurring when two artists who share a particular way of seeing collide.
  • Duality: Nima Nabavi and Jason Seife

    Dr Natasha Morris
  • Fans, friends, collaborators: Nima Nabavi (b. Iran, 1978) and Jason Seife (b. Miami, 1989) present Duality as the product of...
    Nima Nabavi, Civic, 2023, Archival ink on canvas, 92.2 x 94.4 x 5 cm, framed

    Fans, friends, collaborators: Nima Nabavi (b. Iran, 1978) and Jason Seife (b. Miami, 1989) present Duality as the product of an enduring “art friendship”. Connection can sometimes be misconstrued as trite in the world of art: our interests in the creative process are primarily driven by Renaissance concepts of the ‘master artist’ at work, sat with brush and easel in a studio alone but for his own genius. Outwardly indelible linkages such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were more nebulous and fractured in reality, whilst group exhibitions and academy hangs have been as much a place of direct competition as they were, and are, statements of aesthetic fraternity. Duality is a compelling showing of two artists working together in an impressive symbiosis that can only result from deep friendship. Preconceptions of what a two-person show might look like are left at the door. 

  • Both Nabavi and Seife think in colour, shape, and line. Each pairing of canvases, from Tenet, to Civic, Radar and...
    Jason Seife, Civic, 2023, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 94.5 x 94.7 x 5 cm, framed

    Both Nabavi and Seife think in colour, shape, and line. Each pairing of canvases, from Tenet, to CivicRadar and Level are mixed and matched, but not exact. The strictest aspect of each coupling of works is the precise dimensions of each canvas as being the same, be it classic rectangle or experimental long diamond. Whilst the foundational proportions were shared, both artists agreed upon the works being cousins and not siblings. There is enough of a similarity to begin to draw out a familial relationship from one work to another, but not enough that they become each other’s mirror image. The conceit is therefore more sophisticated: they are the same, but different. 

     

    Geometry was the pair’s common ground. Even the works themselves can be seen to be created in parallel: a call and response between Seife and Nabavi’s own particular approaches to how colour and form can be shaped. Even the title of each piece is an extension of these interrelated concepts of commonality and departure. Each work is named with an evocative palindrome shared between pairings. The structure of the letters themselves is even considered from a design approach, envisaged as an extension of the works themselves. Much like the companion pieces, the titular words are the same thing seen from a different perspective. 

  • "It entails a tangible sense of mutual respect and the deep knowing of someone else which extends, at its most intimate, into the anticipation of their next move. What results is a symbiosis that becomes a pas de deux."

    Up close, the detail is rich and even more complex than either artist had attempted before. There is a subtlety of matching elements in response to one another. There may be a corner of blue, or a hexagon of orange, that at once appears bold as brass to Seife’s eye that becomes a gauzy layering of tones in Nabavi’s execution. Ultimately, they work in very different mediums, and although they may mirror one another structurally, the works retain the tell-tale idiosyncrasies of their maker’s approach. Seife’s work is bold in its flatness and opacity, with pools of pure colour and satisfyingly smooth outlines crafted in a way that is resoundingly painterly. There is room for plenty of tension, perhaps, in these juxtapositions, but in keeping each work’s independence they avoid direct conflict. Working in tandem like this is hugely revealing. It entails a tangible sense of mutual respect and the deep knowing of someone else which extends, at its most intimate, into the anticipation of their next move. What results is a symbiosis that becomes a pas de deux.

  • Abstraction is rarely thought of in straightforward terms. As an impulse, a process of mark making, of manipulating shape and...
    Nima Nabavi, Level, 2023, 2023, Archival ink on canvas, 189 x 79.2 x 5 cm, framed

    Abstraction is rarely thought of in straightforward terms. As an impulse, a process of mark making, of manipulating shape and creating and noticing patterns, the art of abstraction is often intellectualised away from the primacy of form and the desire to create it. This is particularly true when considering works that are, no matter how tangentially, connected with the region of the Middle East. There is an indelible link between a shared heritage of Islamic art as the original abstraction; an overarching aesthetic modality that produced harmonious geometries and beautiful patterns in an expression of the divine. Navigating quite a distant relationship to tradition is the cross to bear of the diasporic artist. Choosing to be the voice that vocalises the enduring influence of heritage is, and should be, a self-conscious decision. Instead, the impact of a foregrounded visual and cultural lineage is stealthy and unconscious: the backing track to the whirling carpet-led symmetry of Seife and Nabavi’s disciplined, harmonious geometries are the result of a life-long awareness and absorption of certain conventions, combinations, and motifs rather than a detached, dedicated study of their historic meaning and development. In this way, their works defy categorisations of ‘Islamic’ or ‘Persian’ as there are no specific rules, regulations or justifications inherited from direct quotations of historic works, traditional training, or artistic philosophies. “Boldly moving into the weirdness” is how Nabavi puts it: a process probably more similar to the generative experimentations of artisans and artists from centuries past. Nabavi himself is self-taught, the stunning precision of his methods is based as much in contemplation as it is in mathematics. Seife’s own artistic education was just as instinctual; his artistic leanings were evident from childhood, going on to forge a career in graphic design before observing textile artists and carpet weavers in Morocco, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. 

  • Likewise, the grande dame of Iranian contemporary art, the late Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, was famously direct in her approach to...
    Jason Seife, Level, 2023, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 190.5 x 78.5 x 5 cm, framed

    Likewise, the grande dame of Iranian contemporary art, the late Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, was famously direct in her approach to her practice, despite efforts by critics and art historians to overlay her work with numerological and spiritual significance embedded in Sufi mysticism. Footage of the artist at work in her studio in showed Farmanfarmaian moving a ruler across paper, simply intoning ‘inja…inja… inja’ (here…here…here) – a mantra, whispered under her breath in Persian, narrating instinctual acts. The way that Seife and Nabavi talk to and about one another, their works, and their practice, is equally as unfussy: there’s no jargon, no getting caught up in external ideas. Any exterior meaning is based on gut feeling, what application of shade of red ‘feels right’ rather than getting bogged down in symbolism over visual functionality. The pair have more in common with the philosophies of Formalism: an aesthetic clarity that is paramount above all else. 

  • Alongside playfulness and intuition, there is a meditative sincerity to how they both work. Both artists have described their individual...
    Nima Nabavi, Radar, 2023, Archival ink on canvas, 84 x 95 x 5 cm
    Alongside playfulness and intuition, there is a meditative sincerity to how they both work. Both artists have described their individual practice as ‘peace inducing’ or ‘contemplative’, and a project such as this one, which entails having to consider someone else’s concurrent artwork as well as your own, entails a departure from the introversion of that cerebral mindset. To work together necessitated the forming and expanding of parameters old and new, both in terms of forms on canvas and internal preconceptions. New demands of making things ‘work’ meant finding different remedies to aesthetic conundrums that may not have previously been considered. There was, however, also the comfort of being on the creative journey with someone else. The pair describe the process of starting a piece and responding to it as akin to ‘passing the baton’. Sharing whilst producing was a comforting process, rather than the comparative isolation of working towards the grand reveal of the finished piece alone. It was also a lot of fun, and there is too little said about the role that the joy plays in the creative process. Through the explosions of firework-bold colourways and satisfyingly intertwined and oppositional patterning, the joint thrill of the project is palpable. 
  • It is not hard to see how works followed one from the other with ease, gaining momentum as each artist...
    Jason Seife, Radar, 2023, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 83.2 x 95 x 5 cm

    It is not hard to see how works followed one from the other with ease, gaining momentum as each artist become accountable to the other, finding new opportunities for expressive freedom whilst relinquishing a degree of creative control. There were no disagreements or significant forks in the road. Over four years of sharing techniques, methods and materials, the harmony of this exchange is aptly legible in the outcome of the works and the simple pleasure of looking at them.

     

    The collaborative crescendo of the relationship is Noon, a combined piece worked from four L shaped panels that tessellate outwards in an impossible square. The pair discussed the possibilities for what kind of shape would be able to accommodate two different approaches yet show them working together in symbiosis. The remedy was invention: each artist worked on two of the embracing segments, with the final progression of the piece envisaged as a shape made together. Transitional points of contact are marked by escalating shades of orange, blended from reddest red to brightest buttery yellow. The eye is coaxed to zoom outwards, starting from a deconstructed central rosette of emptiness, before shapes, lines, colours, and patterns begin moving outwards in tandem.

  • The middle void, a white-hot pin within the irradiated braids of colour, was a way to work together on the centre as the generative and anchoring point of departure; this solved not only the issue of who would begin the piece but cultivated a working method akin to a trust exercise. Without the central point, Nabavi and Seife were forced outside their respective comfort zones of creation: there was no compass point of sunburst shamseh medallion of a carpet to work around. Both practically and symbolically, in Noon each half must lean on the other to create the middle. 

     

    This dichotomy between freedom and discipline that accountability and exchange create has pushed each artist to evolve. This was the first time Seife had taken away the foundational anchors and borders from his work. The growth and expansion of his approach to pattern and composition, geometry, and design has been developed significantly from working so close to Nabavi’s precision. On the other hand, Nabavi found himself compelled to work beyond the logical limits of the rainbow spectrum. As natures inherent prism, it had been the palette of his work in its most pure iterations. Working with Seife even had him looking at his family’s Persian carpets anew: there was a wildness of tonal companions, unexpected combinations, and fields of colour – complimentary or clashing, harmonious and discordant, deep versus light – that in turn encouraged him to let go of familiar or immediately appealing colourways. Collaboration was perhaps the natural next step for both to take. A dual exhibition was the culmination of a process that had already been burgeoning since their first initial contact, where the suggestive seeds of trying different papers, colours, and compositional combinations on each other’s recommendations were beginning to germinate. In ways both literal and metaphorical, the exhibition is a way of putting pen to paper on developments that were organically occurring when two people who share a particular way of seeing collide. 

     

    Such lessons in compositional chemistry are already being applied in the production of new works, with both artists approaching changes in medium, scale and shape with fresh eyes and ready hands. What will endure most, perhaps, for both the makers and viewers of these pieces, is the idea of tapping into someone else’s idea of the infinite whilst working on your own. 

  • About Nima Nabavi

    Born in Iran in 1978, Nima Nabavi is a self-taught Iranian-American artist who was raised in the United Arab Emirates.  

     

    Even though he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Business and was an independent business owner for 20 years – he unexpectedly changed paths in 2016 inspired by the geometric art of his late grandfather. He is now based in Dubai, where he dedicates himself to an art practice driven by a mathematical approach and a contemplative execution of intricate geometries. 

     

    Selected solo exhibition include; Visiting, Roswell Museum, New Mexico, USA (2023); 1,2,3, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2018). Selected group exhibitions include; Geometry and Art in The Modern Middle East, Misk Art Institute Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2023); Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival – ‘Graduate’, Sharjah Museum of Art, Sharjah, UAE (2022); Ways of Seeing Abstraction - Works from the Deutsche Bank Collection, Palais Populaire, Berlin, Germany (2021); There is Fiction In The Space Between, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2020); Crafting Geometry: Abstract Art from South and West Asia, Sotheby’s, New York, USA (2020); Fragments, Yesterday and Today, Gateway, Abu Dhabi Art, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2019); Your Favorite Artist's Favorite Artist #2, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, USA (2019); Horizon, Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival, Sharjah, UAE (2018). 

    Nima's work is part of private and public collections, including the Deutsche Bank Collection, Berlin, Germany and the Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE. 

  • About Jason Seife

    The intricate patterns of traditional Persian carpets and arabesques formed lasting childhood memories for Seife, who was born to immigrant parents from Syria and Cuba. Seife meticulously hand paints his own original designs. Despite being inspired by tradition, he makes use of unconventional materials such as reinforced concrete, allowing his work to be appreciated by broader audiences. Yet, the historical significance behind the work remains particularly important to Seife who admires the ability of traditional weavers to incorporate hidden meaning in their designs. These ancient designs were able to link to specific cultural identities, geographies and communities. Seife has followed in these footsteps, creating his own concealed language. The colours and patterns he uses are reflections of his own mood, relating to his emotional state of mind. 

     

    Selected solo exhibition include; Coming to Fruition, Pérez Art Museum Miami, US (2023); Generascope, Tabari Art Space, in collaboration with ICD Brookfield Place, Dubai, UAE (2022); Carlo Bilotti Museum, Rome, Italy (2022). Selected group exhibitions include; Traditions Interrupted, Museum of Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX (2023); Traditions Interrupted, Katonah Museum of Art Katonah, NY (2022); Beyond Borders, Unit London, UK (2019).

     

  • About Dr Natasha Morris

    Dr Natasha Morris is Lecturer in Islamic Arts at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She received her PhD in the art of Qajar Iran from The Courtauld Institute of Art, from where she also holds an MA and BA. She was previously Myojin-Nadar Project Curator Middle East Art at the British Museum, and has written extensively on the arts of the Middle East and North Africa for a number of publications, including The Oxford Art Journal, The Art Bulletin, Time Out and The Guardian.