Ali Kaeini, an Iranian artist, weaves a tapestry of discourses exploring displacement, historical identity, and the Iranian diaspora, drawing inspiration from Iranian history, art, and architecture to create intricate geometric structures surrounded by spiral organic forms, rebelliously departing from traditional techniques. His suspended paintings in space create a sense of barrier and wall, each painting acting as an independent landscape and a wall in front of another, while his figurative calligraphy and silhouette of museum objects serve as metaphors for the displaced body.
Kaeini has exhibited his work from the U.S. to the Middle East, Iran, and Europe, and was a finalist in the Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards in 2022. He received his M.F.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2023 and he attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2019. In 2023, he earned the Hamiltonian Fellowship.
At MacDowell, Kaeini worked on a series of paintings for his upcoming solo exhibition at Hamiltonian Artists in Washington, D.C. scheduled for March 2025. The visual language of this series adopts a childlike tone, drawing inspiration from others' narratives and his own early memories of life in Tehran, Iran, following the revolution and the war with Iraq.
