April 23rd through May 31st, 2014

Opening Reception: Thursday May 1st, 5:30-7:30pm

Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to announce Parallax, an installation by Ala Ebtekar, his fifth exhibition at the gallery.

Ebtekar will present a concise arrangement of two new works in dialogue, a large painting and Fantastic Voyage, a mixed media light-box.  The two very different representations of the cosmos are installed mirroring one another, in harmonious opposition, each, in its own visual language, a metaphor for openness.  The large painting on canvas depicts a vast, dark blue firmament, a starlit universe seen through a veil of stylized clouds.  On the opposing wall is placed a bright light-box incorporating a found science fiction movie poster over which the artist has drawn and printed an overlay of decorative patterning.  In either work, space is presented as exploration-- perhaps of the future or the meaning of the past.

In other recent works Ebtekar has delved into, through the inspiration of the revered Persian poet Hafez, the metaphor of the portal, as an opening to another world.  Crossing the threshold into the gallery space, passing through its portal, the viewer is offered two images of expansiveness, each a different entry to a cosmos beyond worldly experience.  Ebtekar references the Sufi belief in the existence of dual natures, the earthly and the divine, with the arch or portal serving as the transition between the two.  

Raised in California by parents displaced from Iran, Ala Ebtekar absorbed images from Persian tradition while surrounded by the West Coast’s digital culture and graffiti art scenes.  He has described his work as a “glimpse of a crossroad where present day events meet history and mythology.”  As a teenager he worked with Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) and later travelled to Iran to study traditional painting technique. In 2002 he received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, and in 2006 his MFA from Stanford University, where he is now a visiting lecturer.  He has exhibited internationally, including participation in “One Way Or Another: Asian American Art Now”, organized by the Asia Society;  in the 2006 “California Biennial” at the Orange County Museum of Art.; and in “The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989” at the ZKM (Center for Art and Media) in Karlsruhe, Germany.

For further information about the exhibition and the artist, please telephone 415.433.2710