Y Z Kami, Night Paintings, Gagosian Rome

Y Z Kami, Night Paintings
Installation View @ Gagosian, Rome

As a way to mitigate the inevitable overwhelm of history, culture, architecture, and art in Rome, I always visit one place, or do one thing that I haven't done before. After four days of looking at ancient, medieval and renaissance art last week, I headed for Gagosian's Rome gallery, just behind the Spanish Steps. This glorious space is not just a haven from the buzz of the streets, but stepping into a contemporary art exhibition brought relief from the layer upon layer of history that makes up the palimpsestic city. The clarity of the light flooded space, together with Kami's indigo and white paintings offer reprieve from the weight of history all around.

Y Z Kami, Night Painting 2 (For William Blake), 2017-2018

Contributing to the already obscure, floating shapes of the Night Painting series, Kami works with oil on linen, producing works on which the ill-defined shapes seem to float. I wondered for a long time what I was looking at. But Kami manages to obscure the abstract to the point where the white gradations and forms don't resemble anything in the everyday world. Almost resembling forms under the sea, perhaps under a microscope, in a gaseous state, or even x-ray images, the forms are always out of reach, never quite discernible.

Y Z Kami, The Great Swan, 2018

Also on display are two paintings from The Great Swan series. These two larger works are striking for the black veil that comes down over the figures, obscuring parts of their bodies and heads. The paintings of Hindu mystics surrounded by rapt worshippers may have figures, but like the Night Paintings, it is impossible to say what is happening in the image. The eclipsing of the top half of each painting effectively cancels out the hints of figuration underneath. Though we may be tempted to ascribe a political or social significance to the scenes of The Great Swan paintings, whether their discourse is on greatness, or worship of idols, or the other worldliness of the prophet, in the end, the blurring of the faces and obscuring of the scene, renders all meaning, once again, out of reach. Thus, in the end, as much as Kami's paintings gesture towards the larger significance, they remain enigmatic.