Movement from the start: Geometric pictorial formations that make the eye circle, kaleidoscopic reflective surfaces that throw the gaze back into the room as well as into one's own face, and fragile tubular steel sculptures that stretch voluminously and airily into the room at the same time and downright challenge one to walk around. Even the first glance casts a spell; perception does not stand still.
In Timo Nasseri's current exhibition, serial groups of works and ensembles from different work phases come together: In his paintings, precisely calculated, intense
color patterns from a multitude of geometric forms leap into space.. The elegant curves of the tubular steel sculptures, however, turn out to be straight lines at second glance, which nevertheless manage to outline geometric volumes with great sophistication. And the countless triangular facets of the mirror works even sabotage the direct view of the crystalline formations with infinite refraction and light reflections.
Of course, Timo Nasseri is not only interested in optical confusion and magical processes of perception. His pictorial and formal inventions, especially in the three dimensional works, are fed by profound explorations of mathematical thought models and the mathematical principles of Islamic ornamentation and architecture. Thus, the sculpture 'Hedron' takes up mathematical models of infinity, while the mirror sculpture 'Parzec' makes the abstract phenomenon tangible with countless mirror facets, which admittedly never allow a complete image. In Timo Nasseri's work, abstraction is not exclusively aesthetic, but also a mathematical and at the same time symmetry-forming operation, to make potential possibilities in the field of the visible tangible.
In doing so, the high-contrast pattern allover in Nasseri's paintings refer to the camouflage method of 'razzle dazzle,' a camouflage for ships used in World War I to purposefully misinform the enemy's eyes. The garish color patterns of the Dazzle paintings were intended to make it difficult for opponents to determine a ship's correct position, speed, and direction.
Timo Nasseri's vertical-format pictures now take up these irritation maneuvers and, with their color gradients and vivid color contrasts, simulate diverse movement effects that provoke violent eye flickering. We can never be sure of correctly interpreting what we see. But since we can't help but surrender to these perceptual irritations anew each time, this kind of painting is also capable in the most meaningful way of literally presenting us with the deceptive potential of painting as well as the deficient moments of our recognition.
– Birgit Effinger