Kamran Samimi: Sanctuaries
Sanctuaries is a beautifully layered response to an extraordinary time and place.
About Kamran Samimi: Sanctuaries
Sanctuaries is a beautifully layered response to an extraordinary time and place. The work is the outcome of an artistic residency that was extended by several months because of the impacts of the pandemic. This unique, expanded time frame realized a thoughtful artist-curator process that captured engagements and entanglements with Shangri La that only time could inspire.
Samimi observed and studied the materiality of the museum and surrounding landscape—from the collections and buildings to the stones on the hillside and the ocean waves crashing below—as conduits to a spiritual space that resides deep within each. The resulting artwork animates a specific facet of Shangri La: earth beneath the museum, architectural structures, and the many peoples involved in its creation.
The pieces employ mark-making techniques to convey the aliveness of the natural world and the artist’s own cultural awakening and ancestral connections with Shangri La. Sanctuaries is a celebration of the journey of self-discovery and reflects on the spiritual and natural connections that are made along the way. Kamran Samimi is Shangri La’s first Hawaiʻi-based Artist-in-Residence.
Artist Statement
Through an artistic practice that is both intuitive and tactile, Samimi is guided by a search for the spiritual essence of the natural world, seeing its capacity for insight on concepts of space, time and impermanence. He seeks to awaken such energies within the materials he uses in his work, and is informed by the value of making links between seemingly disparate genealogies.
His artworks erase boundaries between form and matter—suggesting that these differences that are merely surface deep—and embrace a fluid conception of identity that allows for underlying connections. The message is poignantly human: through these connections, we share the same ancestors and we share the same home.
This sense of self—one that seeks to explore one’s place in the world—is what drives the artist’s exploration of a common origin for understanding all things, and offers a reminder of humankind’s often forgotten spiritual connection to the environment.
Ascendants (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
This sculptural installation is the artist's tribute to the generations of thinkers, artisans and laborers residing in his family tree, embodying creative, cultural and vocational connections over time and space.
Ascendants (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Materially, the piece depicts the diverse range of elements that Samimi’s ancestors have used in their work: wood, stone, metal and plastic. Several of the materials were sourced from the grounds at Shangri La and draw a connection to the people who built the museum.
Ascendants (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
In the Persian tradition, the hayat (courtyard) in a home is the meeting point to receive guests and socialize with family and friends. It is a sacred gathering place.
Ascendants (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Samimi’s residency at Shangri La provided an unique opportunity to visualize his rich and complex relationship to the collections and cultural resources at Shangri La, bringing together all the peoples and cultures represented at the museum and manifested in him.
Dark Matter (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
The Dark Matter triptych installed in the Moroccan Gallery at the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Dark Matter (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
These paintings explore the land that underpins Shangri La, imagining the stories embedded in stones and other formations that compose the grounds.
Dark Matter (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Overlooking the museum (and inaccessible to the general public) is a faded petroglyph - a unique reminder of the preexistence of Hawaiian life.
Dark Matter (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
For Samimi, the life essence of the natural world may be discovered through the careful contemplation of these markings and signs, and the rocky earth on which they are written.
Dark Matter (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Each painting is a meditation on the life cycle of stone: Solid, Liquid, and Transcendent.
Dark Matter (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Samimi intuits the spirit of the earthen material to guide the flow of oil sticks to recreate nature’s life rhythms.
Dark Matter (detail) (2020-2021) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
The work conveys the unseen energy that resides beneath seemingly hard and unchanging surfaces in the natural world to present what Samimi believes are its unifying threads.
Of Stone and Sea (2020) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Of Stone and Sea diptych installed in the Moroccan Gallery at the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design.
Of Stone and Sea (detail) (2020) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
The idea of “building a home”--a place for the artistʻs spirit to reside--is the foundation of these artworks.
Of Stone and Sea (detail) (2020) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Samimi created a textured topography made of stone and water to create channels for the flow of ink and pigment, capturing its motion and emotion across the canvas as the liquid followed the path of least resistance.
Of Stone and Sea (detail) (2020) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
This material-driven approach was inspired by the many layers of worn stone and bedrock throughout the property of Shangri La, and listening to the sound of waves crashing against them at the shoreline while seeing rain channeling over their surfaces.
Of Stone and Sea (detail) (2020) by Kamran SamimiShangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Of Stone and Sea combines elements in ways that showcase how the Earth is the ultimate source material for creating a home.
Artist Bio
Kamran Samimi grew up in rural Laupāhoehoe on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi to parents of Iranian and Norwegian ancestry. He has exhibited at The Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), Tokyo Midtown (Japan), and at many venues around the state of Hawaiʻi, including solo exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art, The Gallery at the University of Hawaiʻi, the Kirsch Gallery, and Kahilu Theatre. Samimi earned a BFA in Printmaking and an MFA in Print Media and Sculpture from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Kamran Samimi is Shangri La’s first Hawaiʻi-based Artist-in-Residence.
Shangri La is a museum for learning about the global culture of Islamic art and design through exhibitions, digital and educational initiatives, public tours and programs, and community partnerships.
For more information visit us at : http://www.shangrilahawaii.org/
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