CONSUMPTION : : NEGAR AHKAMI

: : : : : : : : NEGAR AHKAMI : : : : : : : :


Boo! 2003 12” x 9” gesso, acrylic, marker and glitter on canvas Artist’s Collection, New York Cat. na5

Untitled 2003 10” x 12” Gesso, marker, nail polish, glitter, acrylic, sushi garnish, and googly eye on canvas Artist’s Collection, New York Cat. na6	Untitled 2003 8” x 10” Gesso, acrylic, marker, glitter, sushi garnish, and saffron on canvas Artist’s Collection, New York Cat. na7

In lieu of the coffee rings on the large paper compositions, these three small acrylic paintings were spurred by a foundation of gesso, congealed to form a relief, on which Ahkami staged delightfully colorful little scenes. In the context of Western art, this is not a readily obvious choice, and indeed these works represent the flip side of Ahkami’s scale reversal in the works on paper. Counter-intuitive to the Western eye, accustomed to perceiving works on paper as means rather than end, and has, accordingly, certain expectations of scope from canvas-based art, Ahkami regards her canvases as miniatures, and therefore deliberately compresses the iconographic scope in works on this support.

She is dealing, generally, with the same issues in both media, issues emanating from her consistent pool of themes. In Boo! For instance, she offers a single representation of that Islamic edifice we have seen in the grand compositions, narrating it as a pseudo-horrific theme park ride this time, mocking the surge of almost superstitious fears of all things Islamic post September 11. But Ahkami also takes advantage of the limited, un-monumental nature of this different medium to turn in other directions, offering such visual winks as the wasabi dividers glued to the edge of cat. na7. Referring to the grand tradition of Far Eastern cultural influences on the Persian arts, this motif is possibly a remark on the depreciation of artistic dialog in the age of consumption. —NT

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