June 16 - July 10, 2023

Reception: June 17, 5:30 - 7:30pm

Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to present, re-emergence, an exhibition of new work by Ala Ebtekar.

 

Ebtekar's third solo exhibition at Gallery Paule Anglim will feature new work in a range of media, synthesizing historical and modern imagery through drawing, photography, sculpture and painting.  Born and raised in California by parents displaced from Iran, the artist's rich imagination was fed by images from Persian tradition and the pop milieu of graffiti and California youth culture.

 

In a new series of images of women, Ebtekar composed photographs of young women using props and costumes he created.  His digital color images are then painted over, using motifs and painting styles related to ancient Persian miniatures and more recent qahveh khanehei painting, a style developed in 20th Century Iranian coffee houses.

Two new large painted works using a background matrix of found Farsi texts will be central to the gallery installation.  A warrior's helmet of steel and feathers (used in one of the mixed media photographs) will be exhibited, along with a shirt printed with text, and the artist's notebooks using found book pages in Farsi.

A talented draughtsman since childhood, the artist studied traditional painting technique in Iran, and was an active collaborator in Tim Rollins' K.O.S.(Kids of Survival) before attending the San Francisco Art Institute (BFA) and Stanford University (MFA.)

 

Ebtekar has exhibited in Los Angeles, London and Dubai, and was chosen for the 2006 California Biennial.  His installation "Elemental" travelled in the acclaimed exhibition "One Way or Another:  Asian American Art Now" organized by the Asia Society.