HK Zamani @ CB1 Gallery

In-between Air, Land and Sea

May 22, 2011 – July 2, 2011
Opening Reception: Sunday, May 22, 5 – 7 p.m.

untitled (4), 2011,  12x9 oil on canvas

CB1 Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition of the work of Los Angeles-based artist HK Zamani, In-between Air, Land and Sea. Zamani’s work over the past 20 years can be located within the extended field of painting, ranging from paintings and objects to site specific, multi-media installations—often including performances. The artist’s new paintings will be on view from May 22 through July 2, 2011. A reception for the artist will take place on Sunday, May 22, 2011 from 5 p.m. - 7 p.m.

untitled, 2011, 24x36 oil on canvas

HK Zamani’s images in this series of new paintings grow out of or away from their predecessors—they are sometimes devils, then angels. Some are on land, in the air or sea, occasional remnants, reformed or transformed over multiple applications of paint. The artist’s dome paintings from recent past exhibitions were portraits, perhaps even self-portraits, fragile portrayals. Some were ruins, some were vessels that transport— chrome and against corrosion—DeLorean, stellar. Many of the artist’s dome/tent paintings were more about the image than paint. The artist’s new paintings over the past 2 years, including the paintings in his current CB1 Gallery exhibition, are most definitely about paint.

untitled, 2010, 11x14 oil on canvas

In an LA Times review of For Your Pleasure, CB1 Gallery’s August 2010 group exhibition, David Pagel wrote that “Zamani’s meaty paintings come from the no-man’s- land between sleep and wakefulness, when consciousness is not fully functional and every little detail is more mysterious than usual. Cartoons form the backstory of his boiled-down compositions, but abstraction comes to the forefront in his idiosyncratic pictures that hover on the cusp of recognizablity.”

Iranian-born American HK Zamani (Habib Kheradyar Zamani) is a Los Angeles based artist and curator. His work is guided by multi-cultural influences ranging from ascetic Islam to psychedelia. He performed in the 2006 Prague Quadrennial and has exhibited at venues such as Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten, Graz, Austria; Hohenthal und Bergen, Berlin; Pierogi, New York; W139, Amsterdam; ARC, Vienna; Kampa Museum, Prague; and Lincart, San Francisco. His work is in the permanent collections of LA County Museum and Berkeley Museum of Art. He received a C.O.L.A. Grant in 2004, and a California Foundation Getty Grant in 2005. Zamani is the founder and director of POST (1995-2005), and its recent renewal, PØST, a subversive venue for contemporary art in Los Angeles, where he has hosted over three hundred exhibitions.