Buckhorn Cliff (2023) Painting by Bahram Berj Kafai

Bahram Berj Kafai is an Iranian-American painter, retired Aerospace Engineer and inventor of several U.S. Patents in Nano-Technology, based in California for the past forty years. He is noted for expressionist paintings of the Golden State's rich landscapes and astronomy subjects.

Philosophy

My paintings interpret nature, its cyclical images of growth and renewal. I paint nature not as I see it, but as it ought to be. I want to be up close to the image, to have the sun low enough in the sky so that light reflects off surfaces in dynamic ways. I want trees to be the key compositional elements of each piece. Finished paintings are a synthesis of my imagination and my observations of nature.

My landscape pieces are either busy with tree branches, capturing the complexity and meticulous detail of nature, or simple and rough, conveying a sense of calm. The latter of these techniques happens and develops intuitively. The colors of the paint, the amount of light is not necessary. My internal reaction to the scenery is what I focus on; everything else is forgotten.

The more worked on paintings, the ones with webbed shadows and detailed reflections, are more dynamic: the calm of color and frantic lines show the peeking and falling of moods. Nature as a subject is never still. It always provides variations, new ways of seeing. This is what inspires me to paint; I want to capture nature as it constantly mends itself.

When I paint in the open air, I am living in my canvas, in my subject matter. I eat, sleep, and exist in what I will later capture in paint. I witness nature in all four of her seasons and may travel several times to the same location, paying heed to light, the movement of branches. I may visit the same site in rain, in the fall, or at the peek of summer to see how temperature and the seasons affect the same landscape and the way it is to be interpreted.

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

-Albert Einstein 

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : 1956
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary American Artists