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05:30 PM » Iranian-American artist Ala Ebtekar

Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by ALA EBTEKAR.

Ala Ebtekar will show several new large scale mixed media paintings complemented by new graphite on paper drawings. Continuing to provide a fascinating intersection of past and present cultures, the artist blends styles of traditional Persian miniature painting with contemporary Pop culture and contemporary Iranian coffee-house style illustration.

Ebtekar’s new paintings feature manuscript pages from prayer books and religious text the artist found in Tehran. The artist paints a colorful layer of figurative imagery in acrylic and ink floating in cloud-like patches over the traditional back and white Farsi script mounted on the stretched canvas.

The Persian manuscripts used by Ebtekar contain texts in instruction and interpretation of prayer. Calligraphic commentary and interpretations are printed in borders and margins at different angles adding pattern while denoting changes of meaning over time.

The artist reflects on this process:

“…readers add their own commentary, interpretation, response, etc.....similar to a wall scrawled with graffiti, or an internet blog, the text continues to accumulate as it is passed from one reader to the next in the course of its existence….”

Born in the United States to Iranian parents, Ala Ebtekar was raised in both Iran and the U.S. As a teenager he joined the K.O.S. (Kids of Survival), working with artist Tim Rollins

in collaborative artworks with groups of urban youth. He received his B.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from Stanford in 2005. He recently exhibited in Dubai and completed a residency at the Cité des Arts in Paris.

Other recent work by Ala Ebtekar is featured in the traveling exhibition One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now, organized by the Asia Society. The exhibition will open at the Berkeley Art Museum in September 2007.

http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/asianart2007

Please visit the gallery’s website at www.gallerypauleanglim.com

From: Nina Cohen <ncohen33@gmail.com>