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Lot Essay
Sonia Balassanian’s earlier abstract works from the mid-1970s are beautifully poetic, developing works that embody a modern abstract language of their own. Her works echo the inventive language of Cy Twombly (1928-2011), the automatic surrealism of Joan Miro (1929-1983), and the visual lyricism employed by the Armenian poet Aram Soroyan (b. 1943), Balassanian has cultivated a distinctive process, producing works much more delicate and unique to her background as an American Iranian living in New York. These abstract works are poignant in that they were created right before her politicized works following the 1979 revolution, making these works highly sought after for their context within her artistic process. Seen within a larger part of her multidisciplinary oeuvre using collages, photography, sculpture, installation and video, this early abstract series solidified her modern visual language that she sought to attain in her compositions, whether exploring notions of identity, gender and cultural contradictions.
The present work, monumental in size and depicting her illegible writings organized in carefully measured rows, is articulated with a rhythmic composition of controlled brushstrokes and a visual balance. The undulation is reminiscent of her childhood, ‘of the mystic lands and landscapes’ that materialize the nature and elements found within Iran, as she extracts the visual memories found within the rainstorms, gusts of winds, and the ranches and masonry structures of her hometown (Sonia Balassanian, 2014).. As an art critic writes ‘The poetry she writes in that language is replete with precise visual details juxtaposed with memories. It is sensual and surrealistic. She has chosen a surrealistic mode for her poetry and an abstract one for her painting, but I can’t help feel that her freest abstract marking is her poetic reverie, her feelings and images, continued in an invented language that has overtones of Middle Eastern calligraphy.’ (W. Zimmer, “Drawing Words,” Soho News, New York, 1974).
Balassanian began her abstract series in 1972 while completing her independent study from the Whitney Museum of Art in 1971. However, this present work was painted during her time in Iran while she moved in 1972 teaching art at the Institute of Fine Arts in Tehran and the National and Farabi Universities for the next four years. An active member of an Armenian poetry collective in Tehran, she carried with her to New York the poetics of writing and the spontaneity of her thought process, articulating this through examining the social issues of the modern world.
The present work, monumental in size and depicting her illegible writings organized in carefully measured rows, is articulated with a rhythmic composition of controlled brushstrokes and a visual balance. The undulation is reminiscent of her childhood, ‘of the mystic lands and landscapes’ that materialize the nature and elements found within Iran, as she extracts the visual memories found within the rainstorms, gusts of winds, and the ranches and masonry structures of her hometown (Sonia Balassanian, 2014).. As an art critic writes ‘The poetry she writes in that language is replete with precise visual details juxtaposed with memories. It is sensual and surrealistic. She has chosen a surrealistic mode for her poetry and an abstract one for her painting, but I can’t help feel that her freest abstract marking is her poetic reverie, her feelings and images, continued in an invented language that has overtones of Middle Eastern calligraphy.’ (W. Zimmer, “Drawing Words,” Soho News, New York, 1974).
Balassanian began her abstract series in 1972 while completing her independent study from the Whitney Museum of Art in 1971. However, this present work was painted during her time in Iran while she moved in 1972 teaching art at the Institute of Fine Arts in Tehran and the National and Farabi Universities for the next four years. An active member of an Armenian poetry collective in Tehran, she carried with her to New York the poetics of writing and the spontaneity of her thought process, articulating this through examining the social issues of the modern world.