Aida Izadpanah’s works installed at ADVOCARTSY’s ART BRIEF IV: Iranian Contemporary San Francisco at SOMArts in December 2018.

Artist Statement

Revelation 

The Revelation series is the emotional and visual vestige of meditations encompassing canvases in acrylic, cement, spackle, sawdust, and other mediums. The deliberate interplay of these constructive elements with the deconstructive phenomena they evoke offers encouragement in the face entropy’s indifferent forces: to accept but not assent to the constant degeneration of matter and meaning. These works both comprise and inspire an intimate engagement with the aesthetic experience of time, whereby sanctuary may be attained in the beauty of the present moment that is innocent of its own passing. These effects emerge directly from and speak to experiences of displacement, whether of the Persian diaspora—as in my own case—through migration more generally, or from alienating episodes anyone might experience in the course of their sentient existence.

Artist Statement

Alignment Series

The sculptural paintings of the Alignment series consist of my hand-made, -fired, and -painted porcelain works mounted on wooden boards. I fashion each piece literally from raw blocks of earth: forming, carving, and arranging them in correspondence to the spirit of the moment. I also maintain and adapt the experimental qualities of texture, color, and composition of my previous large-format abstract painting series. Firing each piece multiple times at over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, I sometimes incorporate liquid 24 karat gold, which solidifies in my kiln. Porcelain clay fires to pure white and is extremely fine in texture, even translucent when thin. It is the least plastic of
the ceramics and therefore the hardest to work with. But porcelain reflects pigments, glazes, and gold so beautifully that for thousands of years this exquisite material has been the most prized among ceramic arts around the world. An ancient and essential alchemy seems to connect humans and earth, such that in many cultures, the creation narrative tells of our species being made from a clay substance infused with spirit. Furthermore, porcelain’s anthropological history involves a number of persistent tensions: fluidity and fixity, labor and luxury, desire and fulfillment. In the Alignment series I assimilate these material and spiritual legacies while drawing on my native and cultivated knowledge of renowned Persian traditions in ceramic arts, as well as my training and extensive practice in European porcelain techniques. Each piece in this body of work represents a process and product of aligning energies toward a delicate balance available in the minimalism of the present moment.

Alignment series- Persian Design
2019
Handmade, fired, painted porcelain and 24 karats gold on wooden board
12 x 12 in each