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Farnaz Gholami
Pearl Palace and other buildings of a misrepresented past
6 - 15th May, PV 5th May
The Bomb Factory South
Advanced booking essential - free tickets available via Eventbrite
PRESS RELEASE
Farnaz Gholami's interests lie in issues around geographical, cultural, and social dislocation. She is a painter who creates multi-layered works, using varying paint textures and glazes to conceal and reveal parts of an unknown narrative in usually unpopulated landscapes or interiors. The oddly unfamiliar nature of these places creates an uneasy visual balancing act between imagination and reality, abstraction and form, suggesting a different in-between place.
Many works in the exhibition, in particular the ‘Palace’ paintings, were inspired by J. G. Ballard’s 1975 novel High-Rise. Gholami investigates what she considers to be the liminal space between utopia and dystopia through her paintings of the Pearl Palace and those of the western style cinema theaters in her home city of Tehran.
The exhibition consists of works varying in scale: large canvases depict fragments of the facades of the cinema theater buildings, whereas the small paintings are more abstract and undefined.
The importance of post-colonial discourse is revealed through the titles of the paintings, as many are based on the names of Iranian cinema buildings. These names reflect the openness to cultural influence in Tehran during the latter part of the 20th Century; Radio City, Cinema Rex, and Cinema Rivoli were named after well-known cinemas in Europe and America, showing the influence of western culture at that time.
Through fragmented imagery and layered painting planes, Gholami has created a space of her own that has departed from reality but represents her memories of those buildings of her homeland and it is this remembered and mysterious world that we visit through the paintings in this exhibition.
Notes To Editors
About The Bomb Factory
The Bomb Factory Art Foundation was founded on the premise that art, artists and creative culture offer significant value in our society. Our mission is to support artists, cultural organisations and educational institutions to engage people of all ages and backgrounds in the viewing and creation of art. The Bomb Factory enables contemporary visual arts practice to thrive through the provision of affordable studio and exhibition space as well as a supportive network of artists where peer collaboration and critique is encouraged.
Private View: Thursday 20 May 2021
Dates: 21 - 28 May 2021
Location: The Bomb Factory, Unit 2, 9-15 Elthorne Rd, London N19 4AJ.
Booking: Tickets must be booked in advance, and are available here.
Contact: info@bombfactory.org.uk