Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present Sand Rushes In, the forthcoming solo exhibition of United States-based, Palestinian-Iraqi artist Sama Alshaibi.Curated by Isabella Ellaheh Hughes, the exhibition will highlight Silsila (2009-present), an ongoing multimedia project by the artist that was shown as part of the Maldives Pavilion of the 2013 Venice Biennale.Alshaibi has recently created new works for the series, including video installations and large-scale photographs.Sand Rushes In will also mark the UK launch of the artist's eponymous monograph, which is edited by the curator and published by Aperture Foundation, New York.
Inspired by the nomadic traditions of Bedouins and the writings of fourteenth-century Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta, Silsila (Arabic for ‘chain’ or ‘link’) depicts the artist's journey through the significant desert areas and bodies of water that connect North Africa and West Asia to the Maldives, an island nation located in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Performing at various sites in North Africa and West Asia, Alshaibi has composed a body of work that describes the desert as a place of enduring paradox.As Alshaibi demonstrates with visual poetics and laden imagery, the desert can serve as the starting point for a broader cultural reading, revealing the mystical and historical importance of such environments, through which the region, even more broadly, the world, can re-imagine an uncertain ecological future.
Date : 26 March - 9 May, 2015
Timings : 26 March (6PM - 8PM)
Venue : 143 New Bond Street, 1st Floor, W1S 2TP, London.
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Ayyam Gallery London is pleased to announce We'll Build This City on Art and Love, the forthcoming solo exhibition of Syrian-Kuwait artist Shurooq Amin.Recognised for her cutting-edge approach to painting, which combines diverse media in the creation of bold portraits, Amin is a prominent figure of the contemporary Kuwaiti art scene. In her latest body of work, the artist explores a wide range of social maladies, from child marriage in war-affected areas to the marginalisation of migrants in the Gulf, and the moral and material ramifications of stalled construction projects such as Silk City, which initially promised the revitalisation of Kuwait’s infrastructure.
In We'll Build This City on Art and Love the artist employs materials as diverse as wood, reclaimed photographs, and Braille.Such formal accents are utilised with reference to individual histories while engaging tactile possibilities, and are brought together to expand Amin’s chosen themes.Literary figures long admired by Amin, including Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani and British author Lewis Carroll, are among several influences that can be found in the visual motifs of her whimsical yet challenging works.
The exhibition will also mark the UK launch of a new monograph on Shurooq Amin with a conversation between the artist, Ayyam Gallery founder Khaled Samawi, and Anthony Downey, contemporary art scholar and Editor in Chief of Ibraaz.
Date : 13 November, 2014 - 10 January, 2015
Timings : 12 November 6PM - Onwards
13 November (6PM - 8PM)
Venue : 143 New Bond Street, 1st Floor, W1S 2TP, London.
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Ayyam Gallery London is pleased to announce Improbable Possibilities, a forthcoming solo show of British-Iraqi artist Athier.Applying theoretical physics as part of its conceptual basis, the exhibition will feature a recent series of paintings that offer visual interpretations of parallel dimensions and their access points, while exploring the notion of absolutes and the potential of imagined realities.
Initially inspired by readings in string theory, Athier has created three distinct but related bodies of work, dividing his aesthetic investigation into a succession of visualised phenomena: Push and Pull, The Cut and Eternal Balance.Collectively, the artist's new paintings present a point of departure for a broader envisioning of solutions for the present and futuristic passageways to the unknown.
The painterly journey through space-time begins with canvases dominated by dynamic architectural elements and fluid tubular forms.These intersecting facets are bookended by entry and exit points: wormholes that the artist describes as, ‘an attempt to imagine the unimaginable as pure energy moving from one space through to another.’ In each painting, overlapping planes support a suspended transfer of energy, as the composition becomes the site of unconstrained forces.
Date : 18 September - 21 October, 2014
Timings : 18 September (6PM - 9PM)
Venue : 143 New Bond Street, 1st Floor, W1S 2TP, London.
Telephone: +44(0)2074093568
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Ayyam Gallery London is pleased to announce Seduction, Iranian artist Afshin Pirhashemi's first UK solo exhibition.This exhibition features Pirhashemi's signature black and white paintings depicting thickly tressed women in the guise of temptress, seductress, repentant, as well as those ultimately beyond redemption.In a departure from his monochromatic canvases of late, the artist also presents two striking large-scale works in colour.
In this series, the women are partially veiled or wrapped in chadors, while at other times they announce their love for the United States, signalling the dichotomy of identity that modern day Iranian women confront on a daily basis.These women long to align with the West, yet at the core are also linked to local identity in dress and social expectation in the domestic sphere.
The intensity reached in these new canvases surpasses the already heightened feelings created by Pirhashemi's previous monochromatic works.Further, the insertion of colour such as chestnut and copper into the hair of his deadly heroines and the symbolic eagle as violent bird of prey imbue the works with a ferocity, blood, lust and vigour that is contrasted with the morbidity and doom of black in which the women are usually cloaked.
Dates : 10 April - 24 May, 2014
Timings : 10 April (6PM - 8PM)
Venue : Ayyam Gallery London
Telephone: +4402074093568
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