Mohsen Veysi
Artist, Researcher, and Educator
Mohsen Veysi is an artist-scholar who was born and grew up in Kermanshah, Iran. His interests in art come from his childhood “my father used to help me hold a pen in my hand and draw. My aunt who was a painter used to tell me about great masters and show me their works to inspire me. Soon, I became an unstoppable drawing machine,” he says. In a society where most people want their children to become doctors and engineers, he chose to follow his passion for art. “That was like swimming against the tide, so frustrating. Most people who knew me thought I was crazy. I don’t know, maybe they were right.” On his way to art, he decided to move to Florence and study painting. It was a very tough goal to achieve. With the lack of possibilities and so many obstacles to face, it was like a mountain to climb. “But for he who was grown up in mountainous lands climbing mountains is not that hard.” In Italy, he earned his academic diploma from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in visual arts. After the traditional and historical experience of Florence, he made his move to the US to expand his knowledge of American contemporary art. There, he received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio.
His main source of inspiration in his studio practice is poetry. His entire body of work is based on the interaction of visual and verbal, artist and poet, image and text. His works are characterized by his approach to diverse Persian and Latin calligraphic styles to visualize poetry in both original language and their translations. For him, calligraphy works as “a vehicle that carries poetry and transfers it to the viewers’ eyes.” Through his work, each poem becomes an image, and each image becomes a visual poem. Both his artistic practice and his research are influenced by his multicultural, and multilingual experience of living, studying, and teaching in Iran, Italy, and the US. His work represents a new image of each poem that unifies different styles of calligraphy, and languages, as they are unifying various cultural and artistic traditions perceived by the artist. Just as his artistic practice extends through the media of poetry, calligraphy, painting and drawing; his research focuses on the history of drawing, relations between drawing and poetry – image and text, Persian art and calligraphy, and the historiography of Alois Riegl.
While studying studio arts he took so many art history courses to deepen his understanding of art history and theory. “Apart from my interests, I needed to know why Michelangelo’s David, and Jeff Koons’s Rabbit are both masterpieces. Plus, when you come from a non-Western background, you must read more about Western art history to be able to link it to your native artistic traditions.” During these years, his focus was mostly on the history of drawing, and the relations between drawing and poetry. Experiences of living in different countries with diverse art, cultures, languages, traditions, lifestyles, and confronting various definitions of art brought him up to questions such as what makes each artist’s art unique? What makes each culture’s art diverse? What makes each era’s art different and unrepeatable? Finding the answers to these questions led him to study human sciences concentrating on art history and esthetics as his Ph.D. major at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. In his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Kunstwollen: A Contemporary View – Local, Global, Transcultural,” he focused on Alois Riegl’s theory of Kunstwollen (will to art) concerning global art production. The first chapter of his dissertation will soon be published as a book. Nowadays, together with his art production, publications and research, he also teaches studio arts and art history. A selection of his publications and artistic projects are available on his website.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My artistic process revolves around the dynamic interplay between visual and verbal elements, seamlessly blending image and text, and bridging the realms of the artist and poet. Through my work, I delve into a fusion of drawing, poetry, calligraphy, painting, and photography, adopting a unique combinational approach. Within this creative framework, the fundamental role of the line takes center stage, serving as the principal element in both drawing and writing. Literature, particularly poetry, philosophy, and the rich tapestry of art and literary history, serves as a wellspring of inspiration for me. Calligraphy, as described by Dick Higgins as an “intermedia” that harmoniously straddles the domains of literature and visual arts, acts as a vital conduit, linking text and image together. It is through calligraphy that I imbue poetry with visual form and convey it to the beholder’s eyes. In this process, my aim is not to adhere to or defy the conventional rules of calligraphy but to wield them freely, harnessing their power to visualize, draw, and paint poetry. Ultimately, I define myself as a “poetartist” or an “artistpoet,” embodying the seamless union of these two creative realms.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
The History of drawing, text & image, drawing & poetry, Persian art & calligraphy, global art history, neuroaesthetics, neuroarthistory, and the historiography of Alois Riegl.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Human Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy (2020)
Dissertation title: Kunstwollen: A contemporary View – Local, Global, Transcultural
MFA, University of Cincinnati, OH, USA (2016)
Thesis title: Portrait of a poet, portrait of a poem
M.A. Visual Arts-New Media, Accademia di Belle Arti di Florence, Italy (2014)
Thesis title: La Linea, L’Uomo, e Il Tempo (Line, Human, Time)
BFA, Painting, Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, Italy (2011)
Thesis title: Disegno è un‘Opera d’Arte (Drawing as an Art Form)