May the Tree No Longer Burn When I Wake

May the Tree No Longer Burn When I Wake is a solo exhibition by Amir Khojasteh at CARBON 12 in Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, from 23 September to 5 November 2026. It presents his first body of work developed after leaving his home country, Iran.

The gallery lists fifteen works from 2025 and 2026. Ten are oil paintings, from the Garden Landscape and Figure of a Seated Man series and A Man in a Tight Corner #2. The largest measures 200 by 260 cm. Five are patinated bronzes from the Lying Man series. The exhibition text imagines the gallery walls as those enclosing a Persian garden, a walled garden in a barren land. "I am standing on a hill and watching the fire slowly settle. What remains is ash, the solid remnants that are left behind by the flames," Khojasteh says in the text.

The landscapes draw on Vincent van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows (1890), which returned to the artist's mind during the Woman Life Freedom movement. Reclining figures on the floor draw on idealised Renaissance marble sculpture. Seated figures on the walls echo the posture of a man seated on a throne.

Khojasteh was born in Iran in 1988 and lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. He holds a BFA in graphic design from Marlik Art University, Noshahr (2011). CARBON 12 has shown three earlier solo exhibitions of his work. They are The Gloomiest Sunset in The World (2019), Try to Catch The Moon (2021) and Living in a Burning House (2024). His work is in the collection of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.

The exhibition text is by Yasaman Nozari.