Shirazeh Houshiary’s work is characterised by its contemplative nature and its concern with communicating through the tangible medium of sculpture, intangible qualities and concepts such as light and darkness, unity and multiplicity, fixity and infinity.
While the work was deeply rooted in her Iranian culture and the philosophical concepts and poetry of Sufism, its expression was very much within a contemporary Western sculpture idiom.
Two groups of sculpture in lead, copper and gold, and one group of paintings, made use of the different light and atmosphere of each of Camden’s three galleries. In Licit Shadow, contrasting metals evoked the play of light on water and suggest ideas of depth and surface. The cubic forms of Enclosure of Sanctity made reference to the science of numbers and symbolically represent the planets. The paintings Dancing Around My Ghost, communicated the shapes and rhythms of chanted invocations.
