THE SPACE by ADVOCARTSY is pleased to present Reveal, a solo exhibition of works by Sepideh Salehi. This is Salehi’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Sepideh Salehi’s practice utilizes painting, photography, drawing and animation to explore ideas of displacement, memory and violence revolving around the poetics of ‘the veil’. Through Salehi’s use and abstraction of Iranian iconography and language she challenges and ruminates on her experience as a women and immigrant from Iran. She states, “I have used the traditional Muslim prayer stone as a starting point. I borrow the etched images on the prayer stones to create patterns through rubbing and printing. The repeated images of the stones create a rhythm leading me in the end, to an imagery revealing layers upon layers. They form a pattern, or echo words that become evident through this deliberate meditative work process.” Her use of negative space and repetition create delicately intense patterns and compositions that veil and unveil the origin of subject, at times giving protection and obscurity but simultaneously exposing and unearthing the vulnerability in memories. Salehi’s body of work and specifically her use of ‘the veil’ is a protest that is currently shared with women worldwide but especially in a time when women in Iran are contesting the compulsory hijab rule imposed upon them,” says ADVOCARTSY director Roshi Rahnama.
Salehi’s use of layering, both physically and conceptually, are used as a device to conceal emotions mediated through decisive yet sporadic and hypnotizing mark making. She often uses words and writing as a form of drawing. She says, “These drawings emerge from a union between the immediacy of line and the direct and literal communicative properties of writing.” Salehi uses her experience as an immigrant as a direct material in her practice manifesting through her hand but also sees her work moving beyond the confines of her culture. Her seemingly meditative and minimal practice complicates itself with the intricacy of the unanswered in a world filled with over sharing and influx of information.
Sepideh Salehi was born in Tehran, Iran, and lives and works between NYC and Washington DC. She received her MFA from Academia di Belle Arti of Florence, Italy in visual and multimedia art. Recent solo exhibitions include Strappa, Rogue Space, New York, NY (2016) and Traces: Drawing in Motion, Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY (2013). Recent group exhibitions include Art Brief III: The (Un)Draped Woman, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (2017), Peace on Paper, Iran Contemporary Art Biennale at Niavaran Cultural Center, Tehran, Iran (2016), Archimedes Bathtub, Lorimoto Gallery, Ridgewood, NY (2015), and Are We Already Gone?, Flicker Lab, New York, NY (2014).
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