Artforum

Experimenting with various deconstructions of the body in paintings on wood and paper—ranging from anthropomorphic silhouettes to robotic forms—Iranian-born artist Maryam Hoseini has gained critical acclaim for their vivid abstractions of gender-oppressed, fragmented figures, rendered opaquely in restrictive architectural spaces. Reflecting on the experience of growing up in a controlled society while also commenting on the fractured nature of the immigrant experience in the United States, the New York–based artist has continually pushed the boundaries of painting while exploring issues of diasporic identity.

A transition occurred in their work—and in life, to which it is bound—in 2022, following both the overturning of women’s rights to choose in the US and the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in Iran. Making work for group shows over the following years, Hoseini depicted more surreal, physical scenes with erotic forms as an initial response, and then radically modified their painting process to express the figures’ newfound freedom. By soaking paint into the wood and layering transparent, deconstructed bodies with tessellated forms in more mosaiclike compositions, their period of experimentation culminates in the eleven striking paintings in the “Swells” exhibition here.

Set in vast landscapes, themes of ecosexuality replace the more architectural scenarios of past work: Paintings like Pink Distance, 2025, portray layered bodies bursting with floral forms that compose a mountainous structure in a patterned realm, while Spine Scream captures disjointed nudes in an underwater environment, with floating bodies and sea life seemingly drifting in the dreamlike thoughts of a silhouetted head. One of three paintings on paper, Curtain offers a glimpse into more abstracted bodies, where flesh tones and intersecting geometric shapes convey a veiled meaning. The most daring painting for this context, however, is Red Note, Blue Mouth, 2024, a carnal celebration of nude bodies rising from a landscape. With a blue mouth doubling as a showerhead and surprising penciled details such as nipples, hair, and fluids, this work reveals the artist’s desire to break free from past constraints and unite with the natural realm.