MAYSHA MOHAMEDI

Early Years

Mohamedi has a background in neuroscience, having graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, San Diego in 2002, and received an MFA in Painting from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2011.

Maysha Mohamedi Artworks

Maysha Mohamedi’s paintings are characterised by their lyrical combinations of colour and line, the latter of which derives from the calligraphy of Farsi, her native language. Favouring colour blocks in irregular shapes, as well as bold or monochromatic colour palettes, Mohamedi’s work has been compared to Abstract Expressionist and Colour Field paintings.

Painting tools

Ranging in size, Mohamedi’s paintings show abstract markings delineated by line or colour, often with the white background left visible. The artist has experimented with unorthodox methods of applying paint, such as using her hands directly on the canvas or a long stick with a crayon attached to the end.

More conventional tools, including a fine-tipped brush, have also been used to create the marks in Mohamedi’s work, which range from short, small impressions of a crayon to broad sweeps of paint.

Rhythm

A sense of rhythm and movement radiates from Mohamedi’s paintings, which often show long curves and lines that intersect and cut across the canvas while patches of colour expand in the spaces left behind them.

Though mostly abstract, her canvases reference and evoke events from the artist’s personal life, including imagery of what could be a town of houses with pointed rooves in Depression Sunset or a creature with a snake-like head swaying in Sneaking into Your House Music (both 2018).

Exhibitions

Maysha Mohamedi has exhibited her paintings in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Mohamedi has been represented by Pace Gallery since April 2022.

Solo exhibitions include Maysha Mohamedi: Roman Nose, Massimo de Carlo, Paris (2022); Maysha Mohamedi: Sacred Witness Sacred Menace, Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles (2021); Maysha Mohamedi: I am the Oncoming Voices, Halsey McKay Gallery, New York (2020); Maysha Mohamedi: Oar Tatig, The Lodge, Los Angeles (2018).

Group exhibitions include On Boxing, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2021); LA Painting: Formalism to Street Art, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, California (2019); 2017 Binder of Women, The Pit, Los Angeles (2017).

Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2022