Born in 1988 in Tehran, Iran, Reihaneh Hosseini lives and works in Vienna.

Born and raised in Tehran, Hosseini studied philosophy before emigrating to Vienna in 2014, where she currently resides. Trained under Austrian abstract artists including Christian Schwarzwald and Gunter Damisch, Reihaneh soon returned to figurative painting, her favored style for reflecting on the world that surrounds her. As a storyteller, she is inspired by her friends and her everyday life experiences, yet she portrays them with a dysmorphic rendition, exaggerated proportions, grotesque, and distorted features, and an incongruous palette. Her strong sense of corporeality coupled with the absurdity of the scenes that she depicts reveal a psycho-emotional approach to life and painting. The figures that populate her works oscillate between beauty and ugliness, they have a cartoonish appearance that adds a glimpse of humor and playfulness to her compositions, yet they are imbued with philosophical subtleties. Hosseini’s paintings take us to a dreamlike world where each of her characters evokes our unconscious thoughts, our inner child, as well as our mental and social imagery.

Reihaneh Hosseini

Oil on canvas 
2022
During a recent cathartic trip to Hormoz, an Island in the Persian Gulf, Reihaneh Hosseini and her friends connected with the soil and nature of her motherland. Travelling in a tuk tuk car on the red sandy road, the weight of passengers had slowed their journey. This allowed them to fully reconnect with their surroundings, taking in all that nature has to offer. With her signature style, exaggerated and almost grotesque features, Hosseini once again brings together playfulness, humor and her philosophical approach to life.

Description

Location

With a certificate of authenticity signed by the Artist.

Authentication

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Painting

The Red Road

Oil on canvas 
2022
In Three Women, Reihaneh Hosseini once again pushes boundaries forward, tainted with humor and cynicism. A selfportrait, Hosseini stands proud alongside two of her closest friends from the LBGTQ community back in her native Iran. Their somewhat deranged and melancholic appearance is a reflection of how the conservative society in which they live - or rather survive - perceives them. There's something purposefully disturbing, yet a peaceful and tender affection between the figures seems obvious. These figures are not erotic objects, rather Hosseini speaks against genderism, and in favor of humanity. A contemporary take on The Three Graces, the artist and her friends - like Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia - each bestow a particular gift on humanity, but with a twist. They become a metaphor for a complex approach to gender identity: the artist herself is heterosexual, yet still on a journey exploring her sexual identity, while her friends are respectively lesbian and transexual. How do they fit - as human beings - in their contemporary society, and in particular within the restrained and overly restricted Iranian community?

Authentication 

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Three Women

Colored Pencils on Paper 
2022
Sunset presents a figure in nature, though distracted by technology. The light reflected on the sea, acting as a halo to the figure, emanates from both sun and screen. The light 
sources illuminate the sitter's face and draw her in, each fighting for attention. With an ever humorous and critical approach, Hosseini is reminding viewers to look past technology, and succumb to the beauty and importance of nature.

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Drawing

Sunset

Colored Pencils on Paper 
2022
A preliminary drawing to the larger painting, this work encapsulates the artist's recent cathartic trip to Hormoz, an Island in the Persian Gulf. Hosseini found inspiration in her homeland's nature and through liberating human interactions. Leaning towards fully embracing her past, but also her female body, Hosseini thoughtfully questions the values she was taught and those she rejected, and freely expresses her own identity.

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Present in the Moment

Oil on Canvas 
2022
Brought up in a conversative and religious family, Hosseini for years denied the trauma that she experienced as a result of her upbringing. During a recent cathartic trip to Hormoz, an Island in the Persian Gulf, Hosseini found inspiration in her homeland's nature and through liberating human interactions. From this trip was born a new series of works, of which Present in the Moment is a seminal example. Now leaning towards fully embracing her past, but also her female body, Hosseini thoughtfully questions the values she was taught and those she rejected, and freely expresses her own identity. Painting like self-therapy has helped her deal with past traumas, as she tackles themes around her personal bodily expression, like a metaphor for the liberation from shame, embarassment, guilt, social restrictions and chastity that had been imposed on women for centuries and on herself, for years. Looking closer at the composition, one is drawn to the fly on the man's face. As we pay attention, we see the reflection of the painter herself, through the man's pupil, alike an invitation to fully appreciate the present moment and freeze it forever in our memory.

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Five Heads

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Goldfinger

Colored pencil on paper 
2021

Front

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We Are Watching

Convelio

Shipping & Handling

Oil on canvas 
2020
Today, the ocean carries various meanings. For some, it relates to leisure, pleasure, and amusement on hot summer days. For others, however, the ocean refers to migration, longing for home, drowning, escaping, and the pursuit of a new home. At any given moment in our lives, our perception of the ocean can be transformed.

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Summer

Reihaneh Hosseini

Also by Reihaneh Hosseini

The Red Road

Three Women

Sunset

Present in the Moment

Present in the Moment

Untitled

Untitled

Five Heads

Goldfinger

We Are Watching