As an artist, Pouran Jinchi mines the parallels between art and language as modes of communication. Language has the ability to reveal what is hidden and obscure what is visible. Jinchi draws on this paradox, creating textual landscapes that are recognizable yet illegible. Inscription in her art becomes a visual apparatus that inhabits the space between perception and reality, truth and meaning.
This preoccupation is extended through her perpetual experimentation with form, materiality, and color. Her work gravitates between gesture and geometry. The calligraphic line evolves to an abstract brushstroke on canvas and then into a linear grid in a drawing or a copper sculptural installation. Concept merges with form, and her body of work becomes an intervention on the architecture of language.
In her most recent work, Jinchi extends this query to the ways militaries use coded language to deflect detection, mark territories, and project power. In her work, Jinchi quietly inventories the unspoken traces of endless wars, perpetual conflict, and pervasive militarism. From Morse code and phonetic alphabets to military insignia and medals, from war paint to camouflage, Jinchi takes stock of a pervasive military aesthetic. Layers of art historical references are embedded in her drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations.
This archival bent feeds into Jinchi’s formal experimentation. The decision to work across various genres from painting and drawing to sculpture and embroidery, is itself deliberate, often referencing source materials that inspire her art – from archival military photographs to Persian literature to punk fashion. Jinchi’s art takes shape through a dynamic synergy between her ongoing research on a given subject and her unconventional use of materials, her play on color. In all of Jinchi’s art, color has meaning. For each new series, she creates an original palette. For her series on militarism, she incorporated color and symbols from battleground camouflage, the stripes of military ribbons, and the coded shades of naval flags. For her series on beauty and pain, she used sharp-edged copper and hues of pinks and blues inspired by bruised skin.
Though Jinchi’s art often deals with somber themes, what ultimately emerges from the alchemy of concept and form are utterly beautiful works of art. This meticulous attention to aesthetics is central to Jinchi’s approach to art making. “Beauty in my art has multiple meanings. I want my art to be approachable,” she explains, “for the viewer’s experience to be contemplative. But the beauty in my art is also ultimately a hopeful sign, that even in times of utter destruction, what is good somehow remains.”