Y.Z. Kami's meditative, architecturally-inspired Domes take over Gagosian Beverly Hills

‘I've always been fascinated by, and really connected to architecture, since I was a young teenager in Iran,’ says Y.Z. Kami when we catch up over Zoom before the opening of his exhibition, ‘The Domes,’ at Gagosian Beverly Hills.

‘At the time I visited different world architectures, from medieval and ancient times. When I came to study in Europe after high school, my fascination continued, and especially with sacred architecture. In churches, temples and mosques, there is this idea of the dome as a metaphor of heaven. This meditative movement is like a repeated mantra that goes through me.’ Y.Z. Kami builds on this idea in his current exhibition, which unites Dome works, dating from 2011 to the present day, with three new paintings from the Messenger series.

Meaning and metaphor unite in the abstract Domes works which build from symbolic and spiritual colours to create hypnotising concentric circles and patterns, in which the viewer is invited to lose themselves.

‘All the colours refer to different traditions,’ Y.Z. Kami adds. ‘Most of the domes at this exhibition in LA are white domes, with that white light at the centre, which gets absolutely wide, and then gradually there is movement. In different mystical traditions they talk about the experience of the white light, so there is probably the reference to that. The blue has a direct reference to the sky and to the heavens, and then the black references traditions of alchemy in Asia, in near East and in Europe. Particularly in regarding the process of transmutation, from base metals to gold, they say the process starts with black, which is dark. Psychologists call it depression, but for the alchemists it is the Latin word for it - black liberator.’

Rather than associated with negative impulses, Y.Z. Kami’s black Domes works are contemplative, suffused with a thoughtful positivity. They join the new works from the Messenger series, which captures a single figure caught as if at a crossroads.

‘As well as the meditative movement, you have the externalized aspects, which is the portrait, the human face and the human presence and the idea of temporality and contemplation. There is this extraverted and introverted quality, because you have the reference to architecture, which is something outside the exterior of our psyche, and then you have interior, meditative movement of the works which look like mandalas, these simple forms with these elements that reference the Greeks, or mosaics.’

Gagosian Presents The Domes, an Exhibition of Paintings by Y.Z. Kami in Beverly Hills until August 8 2025

gagosian.com