Euphoria is somewhere beyond mere enjoyment. Amir-Hossein Zanjani’s new series, “Euphoria,” deals with a sense of elation and bliss drawn from a painterly behavior and pays attention to the techniques and colors apart from conceptual concerns. Unlike his previous series in which painting followed the subject matter and the message, here a series of painterly actions and the impressions of seeing the interplay of colors and form on the canvas are given priority.

Human figures have always been particularly interesting for Zanjani, both in landscapes and in the march of his militaristic figures. “Euphoria” is made of almost-familiar images from news narratives and visual contents of social networks that have assumed a painterly quality. Embedded in the inner layers of these paintings are ready-made images found randomly on the Internet in social networks and search engines, set behind colorful curtains and intense chiaroscuros. We find neither the dominating militaristic figures of “Marching” nor the melancholic portraits from the deep recesses of history. “Euphoria” is a contemporary narrative of countless, easily accessible images of military dominance over Internet that have met a different fate with the painter’s playfulness.