Parsa Khalili: Diffractions

Gezwanzig proudly presents Diffractions, a solo exhibition by Iranian-American artist-architect Parsa Khalili in Vienna. Khalili’s work explores painting as an alternate medium for creating space and form.

Diffractions brings together a body of work that continues Khalili’s investigations into how light, color, and geometry can be reconfigured through painting to conjure architectural space. Here, geometry becomes generative not as a static framework but as a flexible system in which spatial fields are blurred, broken, or rearticulated.

Simple volumes are regenerated through processes of diffraction and dissociation, producing conditions in which form is held in ambivalent tension. Edges disintegrate, dislocate, and fold into adjacent fields, allowing form to both assert itself in space and dissolve into space.

These operations are not merely optical; they model how built space behaves under pressure, discerning how architectural logics fracture, radiate, and slip into new alignments. Borders that once stabilized form become thresholds, orienting geometry toward a state of indeterminacy.

Color functions as a structural code within this system, and through its recalibration and disassociation, forms begin to exceed their expected boundaries. Light gradients slip across surfaces, generating atmosphere from geometry. The resulting visions oscillate between clarity and uncertainty, presenting space as something partially known and partially emergent.

In this constellation of works, space is not built; it is revealed and recomposed. Geometry becomes porous and light becomes operative. Painting becomes a site in which architecture reappears in altered, diffused, and refracted form.

Bio
Parsa Khalili (b. Tehran, Iran) is an artist-architect based in Vienna. 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  boundaries to foster creative transferences between artistic and architectural modalities. 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.

Gezwanzig Gallery
A place for contemporary art with a focus on concrete and geometric abstraction.

Gezwanzig sees itself as a place of encounter, dialogue and aesthetic experience. It presents contemporary artistic positions that are characterized by independent concepts, a strong formal presence and innovative approaches.

Here, art is not only exhibited, but actively experienced, questioned and discussed. The gallery promotes open exchange between artists, the public and experts, creating spaces where new perspectives can emerge. A diverse, continuously evolving exhibition program invites visitors to rediscover the relationships between form, idea, material and space.

Founded in 2023 by Florian Erhart, the gallery operates locations in Vienna and Innsbruck, supplemented by temporary exhibition formats under the labels “gezwanzig projects” and “gezwanzig showcase”.