Hossein Valamanesh Solo Exhibition

Artist: Hossein Valamanesh
February - April 2022

The exhibition of works by Hossein Valamanesh along with the launch of the book Hossein Valamanesh: Out of Nothingness.

Didar Gallery will present a selection of works by the late Iranian–Australian artist Hossein Valamanesh (1948–2021), along with the launch and introduction of the book Hossein Valamanesh: Out of Nothing, from February 25, 2022 to the end of May 2022.
Held shortly after his passing, the exhibition serves as a memorial in honor of one of the most significant contemporary artists of Iran and Australia. It features works from multiple series across diverse media such as video art, photography, and installation.

Valamanesh’s art, deeply rooted in his lived experience of Australia’s culture and nature as well as his ongoing engagement with the relationship between culture and human existence in Iran, opens—through its simplicity—a path to profound contemplation, situated within a poetic journey inspired by Persian poetry and Sufi philosophy.

As Hamid Severi¹ notes in the exhibition statement:
“If the discussion is about choosing between localism or cosmopolitanism, he is exemplary. He transcends this binary, choosing neither excessive localism nor artificial cosmopolitanism. With a trans-local approach, he draws attention to fluidity, tension, and circulation between places and to their connections with culture, economy, politics, and beyond.”

Valamanesh graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Tehran, in 1971, and in 1973 migrated to Australia, where he continued his studies at the South Australian School of Art in Adelaide. His professional artistic practice in Australia led to works influenced by both the historical relationship between people and nature, and the arts of Indigenous Australian communities. During this period, he began experimenting with natural materials—sand, clay, soil, dust, and others—as artistic elements.

Speaking in an interview with Hamid Soury about his use of natural components, Valamanesh reflected:
“I felt that my way of making was more similar to someone doing handicraft (for a practical use). Of course, my ideas are closer to art, but the method relates more to handwork. This was how I could familiarize myself with different approaches. The reason I create works in relation to environment and installation is the freedom it offers. I freed myself and distanced from being solely a painter or sculptor.”

His works have since spanned performance, photography, and installation, and have been exhibited in diverse spaces, including public sites. Notable public projects include:

An Gorta Mór (A Famine Memorial), Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney

14 Pieces, North Terrace, Adelaide

Gate of Ginkgo, the western entrance to Adelaide Botanic Gardens
(all in collaboration with Angela Valamanesh).

Alongside natural materials readily found in his surroundings, objects directly referencing Iranian culture—carpets, rugs, oil lamps, and others—played a vital role in shaping his practice. These works reflect both the complexities and pains of migration and a sense of placeless and elevated spirituality, inspired by Sufi philosophy, Buddhism, and his deep connection with nature.

In Longing Belonging, Valamanesh laid a rug he had lived with for 20 years beneath almond trees in Australia and lit a fire at its center:
“The carpet, as a cultural object, represents the nature of another place. Perhaps our longing is for nature, or our belonging for homeland (home). Yet it remains unclear whether one belongs to something—or what our longings are truly for.” (excerpt from the artwork statement).
Themes such as migration, homeland, home, and dwelling are central to works of this kind.

Valamanesh’s works are held in Australia’s most important public art collections and have been exhibited internationally, including in Germany, the UK, Finland, and Poland. Throughout his life, he received numerous awards and honors, among them a Visual Arts Board grant from the Australia Council, the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in Washington, D.C., and the Grand Prize at the 1998 Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka.

In 2022, a major survey of his work, Puisque tout passe (This Too Shall Pass), was presented at the Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris.

¹ On the Ladder of Image (Hossein Valamanesh in conversation with Hamid Severi and Saeed Ravanbakhsh), 2013, Mahnameh-ye Takhasosi-ye Honarhā-ye Tajassomi [Visual Arts Monthly], no. 1, pp. 54–67.