Morteza Khosravi: Between Action and Silence

In these paintings, the body is positioned as a witness and as a thing enduring. The simultaneous layering and removal of paint allows for the entirety of Khosravi’s process to be immediately visible for the viewer. This representation exemplifies the idea of the body as bearing, sustaining, eroding, and accumulating moments and memories. It heightens not only the visual experience but also the emotional response. Time inscribes itself onto the body, layering upon and removing pieces until the form is structurally fraught yet still standing.      

The transparency and intentional obfuscation of each piece presents the opportunity for open understanding and frequent reinterpretation. Ambiguity sits at the core of this collection. These pieces reject the rigidity of a singular explanation. They offer caveats, propose alternatives, and defy definition. They act just as memory does, as the body does. The muted colors and phantasmic lines breathe and shift with the viewer. These pieces are an exhale, a gasp, a moment sought out, and a moment found.

New York, NY – Leila Heller Gallery is delighted to announce the solo exhibition by Morteza Khosravi, “Between Action and Silence, the Witnessing Body”, opening on 24th February 2026. This marks the artist's first solo exibition in the United States.

“Between Action and Silence: The Witnessing Body” by Morteza Khosravi translates the ephemerality of time and the physicality of the body into the language of painting. He gives form, color, and line to the spaces between action and silence, the spaces of reflection and (re)vision. For this body of work, Khosravi drew inspiration from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film Salò and a selection of self-taken archival images and photographs. These two sources converge thematically in their contemplation of memory, beauty, violence, and interpretation, and they substantiate the further exploration of these themes throughout the exhibition.