Gholamhossein Nami can be truly considered the painter of white, projecting surfaces, also known as abstract three-dimensional paintings. The present painting belongs to one of the most important periods of his career that focuses on a unique visual language. It is a language in which mass, light, and space assume a great significance. Making use of white paint, irregular local projections, and fabric stretched across canvas, Nami has created this absolutely minimalist work. While Nami is tapping into his innovative mind to avoid the classic rectangular form, his unconventionally rhombus hanging method enhances a sense of novel visual expression unparalleled in Iranian modernism. Although this is a rare or even unprecedented approach in Iranian modern art, the history of Western art has been witness to similar styles. Nami’s white paintings, for instance, are reminiscent of certain minimalist works or even a period of Robert Rauschenberg career known as White Paintings as well as his unconventional canvases. Diverse examples of projecting canvases were used during the 1960s at the height of post-painterly abstraction, especially in the work of Ellsworth Kelly.

Nami discovered the potential to turn his white paintings to three-dimensional work in 1966, while he was creating a work to participate in a painting competition on the occasion of Mother’s Day. He has since practiced this method time and again. In his early work, Nami applied bright colors and naïve settings before he started experimenting with white canvases. A growing fascination with white color made him gradually leave bright colors out of his works and become a minimalist modern painter. He says, “This experience was the beginning of a more conscious approach to the world of painting. White color found its way into my paintings and began to shape part of my thinking process over time. I would see the world through a huge filter, as if my mind was lit up by a white light. I would see, hear, think, and feel all in white.”