Athier’s work in recent years has been about letting go and allowing space to enter his compositions, which echo and embrace the floating nature of uncertainty of the world around him. Within these paintings, the artist creates meticulously designed three dimensional scenes, constructed almost like a stage designer. The arrangements explore how objects can exist together, disregarding constraints such as gravity and spacial hierarchy. The elements collide, float, move and melt without constraint. Whether in the industrtial suburbs of Los Angeles or Paris, where his current studio is, the elements that form his compositions are a dircect response to the artefacts which a surround him: geometric blocks, veined marble slabs, shards of rubble, squiggles and urgent marks of dirt on floors, foam refuse, plastic toys, curvilinear objects and patterned forms in a milieu he’s partially documented and partially imagined. Colour has always been a part of Athier’s practice and in recent years this exploration has begun to move into a meditative process. Ethereal echoes of distant memories and conceptual nostalgia are layered into his work directly though his palette. bleached out and sun drenched pastels which have less potency and vigour than the more recognisable bold palettes of past works produce an internal light within the compositions, allowing the viewer to breathe calmly as they navigate his world.

Athier is a British Iraqi visual artist currently based between Paris, London and Los Angeles.