Broken Window summons the figure of the land surveyor by recasting the broken frame around a panoramic view of a landscape bordering the refineries of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in Abadan, Southwestern Iran. Originally captured by an unknown surveyor fascinated by the expanse of the landscape, the image is sourced from the British Petroleum archive.
Looking over lands marked by excavation holes hidden in the background, the artist invokes the surveyor behind the aestheticized frame through a painterly intervention, depicting an oil fountain. Applying restorative exposure and material transference methods, crude oil is used as a painting medium to bring back the erased traces of extraction into the frame, deconstructing the romanticized view of the landscape.
THE HUNTER HUNTED, THE COLLECTOR COLLECTED. >>
