Afterimage, Pool Shift by Rosha Yaghmai

Afterimage, Pool Shift, Rosha Yaghmai, 2023, acrylic paint and ink on organza and cotton

At the end of the school year, I visited the SFMOMA, where I saw Rosha Yaghmai’s Afterimage, Pool Shift. 

Afterimage, Pool Shift is part of the “Afterimages” series, in which Yaghmai explores the feeling of intense color through the use of translucent layers of material. By creating a hazy and distorted image, Yaghmai creates an obscure landscape. 

When I first saw this work, I actually walked past it, but quickly looked back because I had seen something out of the corner of my eye. After turning around, I saw a confusing blur that immediately forced me to wonder what it would look like at different angles. Thus, I walked around the work, viewing it at multiple angles. The work did in fact look different at every angle. The material reminded me of mesh door screens, and the changing color reminded me of seeing things with a sun glare. Even though there was no sun pointed at the work, somehow it still replicated a sun glare, making it introspective. I had to look at it from multiple angles in order to fully grasp its message. To me, the subject seemed to be a reference to dreams, specifically surreal moments of color and blur.