Salman Khoshroo’s MCWH-02, painted in 2020, is a testament to the evolving dialogue between figuration and abstraction. Working in a uniquely visceral medium—thick, impasto oil applied like sculptural matter—Khoshroo continues to expand the sensory capacity of painting.

In MCWH-02, which stands for “Male Caucasian With Head,” the Iranian-born artist assembles not merely a portrait but a confrontation: a bold, hulking visage composed of colorful tension, tactile emotion, and abstraction held in momentary restraint.

A Sculptural Approach to Oil Painting

At first glance, MCWH-02 appears to leap off the canvas. Rather than painting in a traditional sense, Khoshroo applies oil like a sculptor—his palette knife or even hands likely sweeping and layering pigment into three-dimensionality. The thickness of the paint draws viewers in: flesh and pigment become indistinguishable, inviting questions about presence, identity, and embodiment.

The portrait emerges as an emotional cipher. The figure, seemingly male and pale-skinned, is captured in a blur of expressive strokes—rose and umber tones clashing with cerulean and acid green. It’s as if the face is constantly in flux, embodying motion and psychological complexity. Khoshroo isn’t interested in photorealism; he’s reaching for something more primal.

A Human Form Without Definition

In MCWH-02, the facial features are discernible but not precise. The eyes, barely indicated, seem to be buried beneath dense patches of color. The mouth is a smudge, the brow an eruption. This lack of specificity is intentional—it suggests universality rather than individual identity. Despite the title’s dry classification (“Male Caucasian With Head”), the portrait resists the label, pushing back against notions of identity based solely on race or gender.

This resistance is mirrored in the tension of the brushwork. Colors clash, shapes fold into one another, and the head seems to float in an ambiguous space. There’s no background to provide context—just the raw, eruptive presence of a face.

Color and Emotion: From Violence to Vulnerability

Color in MCWH-02 functions as both expressive medium and emotional metaphor. The palette is aggressive but not cold. Slashes of red may suggest violence or inner turmoil, while swathes of teal and violet evoke introspection. The contrast between warm and cool tones creates an inner conflict within the figure—a push and pull between states of being.

Unlike many contemporary portraits that aim to soothe or stylize, Khoshroo’s work unsettles. There is no idealization here. Instead, MCWH-02 presents vulnerability as a form of strength. The grotesque becomes the human. The messiness of oil becomes a mirror to the psychological messiness of existence.

Context: Painting Against the Grain

Created in 2020, MCWH-02 exists in a year of global rupture—pandemics, protests, political unrest. It feels like a response to a year when isolation and identity crises intersected across geographies. While Khoshroo’s portrait doesn’t directly reference these events, the emotional weight of the work aligns with the fractured psychological terrain of that year.

In terms of formal lineage, MCWH-02 resonates with artists like Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff—British expressionists who also treated oil paint as a malleable, sculptural entity. But where Auerbach stayed rooted in observation, Khoshroo moves toward expressive unmooring. He shares more in common, perhaps, with the later works of Georg Baselitz or even the palette aggression of Cecily Brown.

Materiality as Metaphor

Khoshroo’s signature impasto technique in MCWH-02 is more than aesthetic—it’s symbolic. The physical labor of building up the face through layers of oil becomes a metaphor for identity formation itself. We are all, the painting suggests, built over time. We are messily assembled through experience, trauma, joy, memory, and chance. And just like Khoshroo’s figure, we are constantly being reshaped by external forces.

There’s also something performative in this technique. The act of smearing and layering isn’t concealed; it’s celebrated. It makes the viewer hyper-aware of the process, of the hand behind the image. The figure is not just a subject but a performance of painting itself.

Beyond the Canvas: Khoshroo’s Larger Practice

While MCWH-02 stands powerfully on its own, it is also part of a broader body of work Khoshroo has developed exploring gender, identity, and emotionality through abstraction. His “Whispers” series, in particular, dives deeper into non-verbal communication and psychological residue, showing that his impasto style is not just visual but linguistic—each stroke a kind of utterance.

Khoshroo, who originally studied digital arts, brings a multidimensional understanding of form and perception to his paintings. This tech-informed background helps him balance raw human subjectivity with structural control—he is as much interested in how we see as what we see.

The Viewer’s Role: Projection and Reflection

There’s a peculiar alchemy in MCWH-02. The figure, though impersonal in some respects, begins to feel familiar. That’s the power of Khoshroo’s abstraction—it allows space for the viewer to project. You might see a loved one, a stranger, or even yourself in the brushstrokes. The lack of detail becomes a kind of generosity, opening the painting to multiple readings.

In that sense, MCWH-02 doesn’t demand interpretation; it invites meditation. It allows for emotional resonance over analytical clarity. The viewer completes the image, just as they complete the emotional circuit of the work.

A Portrait of the Unnamed and Unfixed

Salman Khoshroo’s MCWH-02 stands as a raw and radical act of portraiture. It resists categorization, challenges conventions of representation, and replaces clarity with intensity. In a time where digital filters smooth over imperfections and portraits are often posed performances, MCWH-02 gives us the opposite: a turbulent, unfiltered confrontation with the human condition.

More sculpture than painting, more emotion than likeness, the work vibrates with a kind of living energy. Khoshroo’s subject is everyone and no one. And in that liminal space—between abstraction and figuration, between tenderness and chaos—the painting achieves what few modern portraits do: it feels profoundly alive.

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