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About the Artwork

Woman No. 3 by Willem de Kooning has long been absent from its place, yet sometimes the absence of an artwork acquires a presence more enduring than the work itself. This painting did not emerge at the moment the work left the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, but later, from the lingering sense of loss that its absence left within me. This time, unlike many of my paintings, only a single figure remains in the image: a figure surrounded by darkness. Perhaps something has been taken away from its world, or perhaps these dark spaces are what absence leaves behind. I don’t know. I only know that sometimes, what is no longer there continues to paint itself within us.