ALCHEMY
September 7-29, 2001
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 15, 4-6pm

Supported in part by the New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs Challenge Program

Alchemy is a four-person exhibition featuring Seyed Alavi, Aylene Fallah, Taraneh Hemami and Haleh Niazmand. This exhibit presents works of four Iranian-American artists whose exploration into their immediate environment is inspired by their multicultural sensibilities. The result is a powerful cultural and aesthetic alchemy.

Seyed Alavi creates poetic site-specific installations incorporating Iranian Sufi tradition, poetry and Persian calligraphy into elements of form and composition. Seyed Alavi’s recent computer based calligraphy creates provoking dialogues between what is apparent and that which is hidden. His new works explore subtle meanings attached to words, evoke the poetics of language and space and their power to shape our reality.

Aylene Fallah extends the boundaries of process art into unsettling conceptual commentaries. Using unusual Persian source materials Aylene Fallah goes beyond linearity of capturing and reducing experiences and enters into a simultaneous "all-at-once" environment. Using her own images, she transfers and revisions identities, but diffuses the nostalgia into multi-cultural dialogues.

Taraneh Hemami is a conceptual artist who utilizes the letters of a language that she can no longer use to communicate ideas of loss and cultural identity. Thus her works become an alchemy of the years past, re-counting the landscape of her personal time, and marking the dates that have within their hold personal and historical significance.

Haleh Niazmand humors the prevalent influences of mass media in presenting an exotic image of Iranian culture. Her multi-layered visual/intellectual comments on myths and stereotypes challenge the viewer to contemplate in dialogical questions. Haleh Niazmand proposes numerous cultural languages and possibilities in each exploration, creating an aesthetically powerful and sociologically interesting alchemy.

Seyed Alavi received his MFA from San Francisco Art Institute, and has created numerous site-specific installations at various institutions around the country. Aylene Fallah studied sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University and has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Canada. Taraneh Hemami holds a MFA in Painting from California College of Arts and Crafts and has received several awards including the 2000 Creative Work Fund and the 2001 San Francisco Art Commission Cultural Equity Grant. Haleh Niazmand received her MFA from the University of Arizona and recently completed a two-year residency at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa. Her works have been the topic of many scholarly papers.

Alchemy opens on Friday, September 7th, and continues through Saturday September 29, 2001.

Listing Information

Exhibition: Alchemy
Organized by: Center for Iranian Modern Arts, CIMA
Dates: September 7-29, 2001
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 15 4-6pm
Gallery: M.Y. ART PROSPECTS,
135 W. 29 St. 10th fl. (between 6th & 7th) NY, NY 10001
Subway: 28th St.(1, 9, N, R) 34th St.(B, D, F, Q, N, R)
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-6pm and by appointment

M.Y. ART PROSPECTS has a mission to promote emerging and mid-career visual artists through the presentation of quality exhibitions, thus bringing them into a public dialogue.

Alchemy is curated and organized by
Center for Iranian Modern Arts, CIMA
a non-profit art organization based in New York City
whose mission is to promote Iranian American artists.
http://www.cimarts.org
e-mail: cimarts@hotmail.com