For Frieze London 2023, Marfa’ is proud to present the work of the artists Paola Yacoub and Talar Aghbashian.

While Paola explores the shape of water through a series of black and white photographs and others casted in wax, Talar’s paintings explore the formal human intervention within landscapes.
Yacoub’s photographs capture the shape taken by a jet when it hits a solid according to its configuration. Water is formless, it takes its shape from the solids of which it follows all the contours. There are deep affinities between photography and liquids, we cannot anticipate a photograph, just as we cannot anticipate the configuration of objects carried away by water. Unexpected things appear that we co-opt at the same time.

In her paintings, Aghbashian uses photos for reference, which are usually of misread visual information, a projection of her mind’s eye. They appear to be close up of figures, or characters on a stage, where things happen, or are presented. From a plethora of reiterated fragments, the painting pushes and pulls together. Ultimately her paintings live in historical atemporality, and is a place of open possibilities, where things shift and coexist.

The works proposed are an investigation on form as Paola’s solidification of form is captured in a photograph and Talar’s exploration on human and landscape symbiosis manifests through her paintings.