Parsa Khalili
work
The work arises from a rigorous process of layering linework and planes that create the illusion of space. Chromatic regimes overlap with patterned systems, whose iterations suggest a static depth in tension with latent movement and transformation.
Obscured alignments and subtle shifts in composition are juxtaposed with abrupt transitions to unsettle the eye, resist visual balance, and hint at more significant figures and operations whose entire logic is concealed. It plays with contingent imbalances that force one to search for stability and coherency without resolution. The result is a series of didactic formal and spatial configurations that embrace complexity and uncertainty.
The introduction of perspective in some of the works shifts the experience from surface to volume. This encounter is further animated by a rich color palette, which evokes multidimensionality. Figures emerge from the picture plane in crisp, hard edges, adhering to their foundational logic while also presenting new readings.
It is restless, probing work—in its production but also in its reception—that searches for space within the confines of painting.
Khalili’s work proposes a form of architectural thinking through a classic yet reformulated medium—space and form collapsed into the limits of the canvas or the object it occupies.Read as formal projects realized through a process of drawing and building, they challenge conventional notions of space-making.Khalili’s experiments intend to blur the differences between drawings and paintings as representations of space and as formal and spatial products unto themselves, yielding a body of work that is both systematic and unexpected.
bio
Parsa Khalili (b. Tehran, Iran, 1984) is an architect-artist based in Vienna and Brooklyn. Spanning buildings, installation, sculpture, digital rendering, and painting, Khalili’s work explores ideas of form and space at the intersections and limits of artistic research and architectural design. His hybrid approach pushes disciplinary boundaries to foster creative transferences between artistic and architectural modalities.
After spending a year at the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de Versailles, Khalili was recognized with the Earl Prize for Design Excellence. He graduated with honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving the Bronze Tablet, the university’s highest distinction. He holds a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Architecture, where he received both the George Nelson Fellowship and the William Wirt Winchester Prize, the school’s highest accolade.
Alongside his design practice, Khalili has held teaching positions at Princeton University, die Angewandte, Yale University, and Pratt Institute. His work has been honored and supported through international grants and fellowships from institutions such as The Graham Foundation, The A+D Museum, The SOM Foundation, Yale University, and the University of Illinois.
His versatile work has been recognized internationally through exhibitions, publications, and design projects in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Iran.