Shirazeh Houshiary: Smell of First Snow, Lisson

Artist Shirazeh Houshiary has been quietly making a name for herself since she rose to prominence in the 1990s as a Turner Prize nominee (1994). While her contemporaries Anish Kapoor and Damien Hirst hurtled onto the art scene at light speed, sculptor Houshiary has been a regular at the Venice Biennale and you may also recognise her glorious upside down Christmas tree for the Tate Britain (1993). 
Lisson Gallery | Shirazeh Houshiary 
Shirazeh Houshiary  returns to Lisson with her eighth show in the north London gallery, and we can expect her classic interest int he collision between the physical and intangible worlds. Examining her place in the world, Houshiary's work descends into metaphysical complexities that swirl with universal energies and turbulent forces. 
A tangle of pencilled words are etched across Shirazeh Houshiary's canvases in Lisson Gallery, their individual meanings lost to an illegible mess. They feel a little like minute DNA structures gliding effortlessly across the picture surface. You'll want to spend time with the sharp cobalt and violet diptych, A Deluge (2015) which swirls with the flux of individual atoms. Smaller and more intimate works like Zero and Seed (2014) team with the serene language of mindfulness. And then there are Houshiary's steel sculptures Allegory of Sight and Allegory of Sound, coated in the deepest black and shining white paint. These are sensual and visceral, drawing us back to the core universal forces that surround us. 
Not an exhibition to be rushed, take a stroll through the imagination of Shirazeh Houshiary at Lisson this spring, where mindfulness is manifested into an art form.