Bomb Magazine

I first saw Maryam Hoseini’s painting Pink Distance (2025) while speaking with them on Zoom on a Sunday evening, which was morning for them in New York City. At first glance, I saw floral forms; then I saw limbs, breasts, thighs; and then, carnal forms merged with natural elements like flower petals, tree barks, insects, water, and volcanic shapes. Despite the quiet anxiety of my Sunday night with Monday approaching fast, the imagery stabilized my consciousness into a calm. 

Hoseini’s objects of desire move within and beyond their canvases, much like Pink Distance transformed my anxiety into calm. This instability is the stability, as each painting unveils bodies and nature that converge and disperse into the four corners of the surface. It is a paradoxical experience for the viewer: the eye’s search leads to a literal and metaphorical space beyond the edges of the canvas. Yet there is a grounding in the tenderness of the figures, insects, plants, body parts, and architectures that float and fold in an almost fantastical yet natural universe. 

Gravity is not taken for granted by the migrant self within Hoseini, who has been facing challenges of displacement for over a decade after moving from Tehran to New York. Their work is an ode to living and breathing in flux in foreign lands in a body that many attempt to contain and label.