Obscurities by Parsa Afsharvajan, the debut exhibition of the NOOK program

About the Series

OBSCURITIES is a collection of six artworks and one sculptural object built from an unlikely material: insulator foam. Working with spray foam, canvas, acrylic paint, and gloss varnish, artist Parsa Afsharvajan developed a process that transforms an industrial material into something deeply personal and endlessly interpretable.

Each piece begins with the foam itself — applied by hand through a nozzle to create organic strings, bulges, and caverns across the canvas. Once hardened, the forms become a landscape of shadows and highlights that Afsharvajan then brings to life through carefully selected color palettes. Paint is applied in meticulous layers, pushed into every crevasse to achieve full, authoritative coverage. A final coat of gloss varnish seals and elevates the surface, giving the work a luminous sheen that shifts with light and perspective.

The result is a series rooted in ambiguity by design. Like clouds, the forms invite projection — no two viewers see the same thing, and no single viewing looks quite the same twice. That interplay between material and imagination is the core premise of Obscurities.

Join Us to Celebrate Parsa and NOOK

→ RSVP here

→ April 23rd, 6pm-8pm

→ Fathom Gallery, 1333 14th St NW

About NOOK

NOOK is This January’s artist residency program, created to support Washington, DC’s creative community beyond the walls of traditional client work. By opening the agency’s space and resources to local artists, NOOK provides something that’s often hardest to come by: dedicated time and a place to create. Parsa Afsharvajan is the program’s first resident artist, and Obscurities is proof of what becomes possible when a creative community invests in its own.

Special thanks to artist mentors Victoria Reis and Teddy Rodger and program supporters Transformer and Fathom Gallery.