War Posters

These Posters are sketches and an extension of the piece: Middle of Nowhere: Locating a Retained Memory, 2013, video projection and installation.

They are printed on vellum. each 11x8.5 in.

 

 

Digitizing my Fill in the Blanks interactive installation.

I am working on ideas of how to digitize my Fill in the Blanks interactive installation, which I created in 2011 and was part of a group exhibition in Keirwall Hael Gallery back in January 2012. The process is exciting and I am discovering ways, and tools to learn and to work with. Check out the pages, above on the menu bar, for some of the templates I have made so far.

More later on this...

Occupy Wall Streets inspired my The Logic of Human Magma painting series

After visiting Los Angeles and the downtown occupy crowd in early October 2011, I decided to visit New York's Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of Occupy Wall Street movement; I was intrigued by how people were organized and created personal spaces on the streets. The tiny population was under the intense watchful eyes of NYPD and encircled to create a sense of isolation from the rest. It felt radical, dynamic, and yet hopeful against all odds. It was ALIVE in a way that I imagine the students' movements in the 60s must have been.  In a way, this was a travel through time, space and generations to see the active participation of citizens in controlling their own destiny. Protest movements around the globe, in Arab countries, in Iran, in distressed Europe, all have a common and familiar undertone which speaks of impatience of masses, power of ruling elites and hope for better times. I created a series of paintings inspired by the photos I took of people at the Zuccotti Park and the protestors of camping tents in Los Angeles. The series is called " The Logic of Human Magma" I used watercolor to render my images.

Here are some of the photos:

San Jose Mercury News

Art galleries are popping up everywhere in Silicon Valley, including business offices

for complete article: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_19779761

By Heather Zimmerman

Posted: 01/19/2012 08:01:53 PM PST

(photo Jacqueline Ramseyer/SVCN/January 16, 2012) Artik art curator Kathryn Funk shows artist Pantea Karimi, center, and Artik owner Bill Gould where she wants to hang some new pieces of Karimi's in their work space/gallery. 

...Going to an appointment with a financial planner, lawyer or architect seems an unexpected way to take in an art exhibit. But the offices of some South Bay professionals, in a far cry from the stereotypical décor of motivational posters or soothing nature prints, house their very own art galleries. Artist Kathryn Funk, a former director of the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art and former artist residency director at Montalvo Arts Center, has been curating the exhibitions for about 10 years. Funk chooses the artists for each exhibition and decides what pieces go where in the office. Gould, along with the rest of the staff, does not get to choose what hangs in his own office.

There is a line that Funk says won't be crossed in the works she chooses for exhibitions. "I would never show anything that was pornographic," Funk says. "It has to have a quality to it." Although nudity or some violence is not verboten, it has to be within a particular context, and not confrontational, Gould and Funk say, pointing to paintings by artist Pantea Karimi hanging in the Focus Gallery. At a glance, the pieces feature intricate shapes, florals and patterns in a rainbow of pastel shades. But a closer look reveals more provocative images, such as the likeness of the Ayatollah Khomeini. "This is an excellent example of finely done, quality images that are loaded politically and socially," Funk says.

Series in progress; New Saints

My work is informed by how contemporary social and political issues and messages are captured and delivered to the world through text and image. Below are some of the works from my current series in progress, New Saints. The pieces include invented calligraphic forms that are derived from Persian scripts; all recognizable, but not legible and these illegible texts and columns are accompanied by iconic media images and symbols unique to each subject.

I finished G 12, part of the New Saints series:

G 12, New Saint series, 2011, mixed-media on paper

G12, detail, 2011, 11x10 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, photo collage transfer, silkscreen on paper

G12, detail, 2011, 11x10 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, photo collage transfer, silkscreen on paper

G12, detail, 2011, 11x10 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, photo collage transfer, silkscreen on paper

G12, detail, 2011, 11x10 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, photo collage transfer, silkscreen on paper

 

 A New Saint, 2011, 64x44 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, silkscreen and graphite on paper

 

Untitled, 2011, 30x22 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, collage, silkscreen and graphite on paper

 

Untitled, 2011, 30x22in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, collage, silkscreen and graphite on paper

 Outside the Dome, 2011, 30x44 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, photo transfer on paper

 

Untitled, 2011, 30x44 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink, collage, silkscreen and graphite on paper

Untitled, 2011, 30x44 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink and graphite

Untitled, 2011, 30x44 in., Persian calligraphy pen, ink and graphite

My Inspirations for the new installation

I cut pages I need for the installation today, Dec 1st, 2011 and marked them where I will photo transfer my images. Below are the images of my inspiration for the installation, Fill in the Blanks, which I will show in the group exhibition, directly indirect, at Kriewall-Haehl Gallery in Portola Valley in Jan. 2012.

My artwork on a book cover: Modernity, Sexuality, and Ideology in Iran

My fine art print, Holy Vanity, 2007, silkscreen on paper, was printed on Modernity, Sexuality, and Ideology in Iran: The Life and Legacy of Popular Female Artists (Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East) book cover, in May 2011. The book is by Kamran Talattof,  professor of Persian and Iranian studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of numerous books and articles. Among his publications are The Politics of Writing in Iran: A History of Modern Persian Literature and the coedited book The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric. 

 

Here is the link to the book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Modernity-Sexuality-Ideology-Iran-Intellectual/dp/081563224X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317237878&sr=1-1

Image of the book cover:

New Installation/Display Works

Installation ideas, for my upcoming show/s. Fill in the Blanks, sculptural News Tubes, and Breaking News digital screen installation are work/projects in progress.

News Tubes, (work in progress), text, photo transfer, silkscreen, rubber band, dimension varies, 2011

Fill in the Blanks, (initial sketches), photo transfer, text and mixed-media, 2011

Breaking News, (work in progress), digital images, text, digital picture frame, 15" monitor, 2011

Fine Art Books

In 2007 I collaborated with Leila Farjami, an Iranian-American poet from Los Angeles, and I illustrated and made two hand-bound books for two of her poems that criticize the female/male roles in Iranian society.
here are some pages of the two books: Super Woman Sale and Vote for Superman. The books are 14 pages each, and are 8 x 5.5 inches, digital collage (inkjet prints) on paper.

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…And The Tech book displayed at the Night Market event. My book was a part of the Artists Reading Room installation book shelf, created by Victoria Heilweil, Oakland, CA, May 2011. 

Quotes in the book are by Sherry Turkle from Alone Together, why we expect more from technology and less from each other, 2011, published by Basic Books.

Cover/back Cover and Pages from … And The Tech., fine art quote book:

 Pantea Karimi, …And The Tech., Japanese binding method, 2011, 5.5x11 in. 

 inkjet prints, collage, text and vellum.

Secret Closet installation, 2011

The Love Letter series, the prints in the Secret Closet installation, is an ongoing body of work that mostly includes illegible texts in various compositions. The series draws inspiration from letters that people send to political authorities anywhere in the world, implicitly or explicitly recognizing their hegemony.

Below images and views are from the installation, Secret Closet, at the Togonon Gallery show room at the ArtPad SF art fair in the Phoenix Hotel, Fri.-Sun., May 19-22, 2011, San Francisco, CA.

          Pantea Karimi, Secret Closet, 2011, 6x2 feet, Love Letter series works (etching on paper), and hangers 
          Installation inside the gallery room's closet
 

 

View from the mirror