ALABAMA

“To create art, it is imperative for me to be vulnerable. Torment and twist – extract the truth from issues with which I need to deal. However, I believe that art has to possess an element of courage in order to provoke change – socially, intellectually, and morally, most notable, in a world where ideas of culture, political, and intellectual activities are evolving, but not without conflicts affecting generations to come.”

-Taravat Talepasand

beta pictoris gallery is excited to announce Taravat Talepasand – Not an Arab Spring , the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery.

As an Iranian woman living in America, Talepasand uses the work in Not an Arab Spring to explore how women navigate the myriad boundaries between East and West. Women’s bodies become surfaces imprinted with the uncertainties left by social and political upheaval, using the human figure as a treacherous place between narrative and introspection.

The exhibition title, “Not an Arab Spring”, reflects on the impossibility of reconciling words, images, and objects as subjects. These new works develop a dialogue between artist and viewer questioning the contortions of cultural associations and how they cross boundaries, what is tolerable and taboo, and the fine line between what is real and imagined. In the post-Internet world, Talepasand reminds us how “All eras seem to exist at once” and then challenges familiar perceptions, paradigms, cognitive processes, and their associated relationships, hopefully leaving the viewer pondering these ever-conflicting messages.
“The relevance of Talepasand’s work and her Not an Arab Spring exhibition,” beta pictoris gallery owner Guido Maus explains, “lays in the clear stand she takes on condemning the unacceptable system in which women are caught up in in the Middle East, and ultimately, in the West as well.”
In 2011, opposition groups in Iran requested permission from the government to protest. The Ministry of Interior not only refused, but also increased crackdowns on activists and the opposition parties. Talepasand considers her Not an Arab Spring as a reaction against the “Rationalism” of hope and disappointment of Iran and the Arab Spring, touching on issues of freedom, dignity, and social justice.

Not an Arab Spring opens at beta pictoris gallery on April 17 and runs through May 23, 2015. The opening reception will be hosted at beta pictoris from 6:00-8:00 pm on April 17, with Taravat Talepasand in attendance. The artist is available for interviews; please contact Guido Maus to schedule. High res images of the exhibition are available through beta pictoris gallery.

Talepasand (b. 1979) earned her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute, BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her works can be found in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the de Young Museum of Art (San Francisco), and the Orange County Museum of Art (California), as well as a number of private collections. Talepasand was awarded the 2010 Richard C. Diebenkorn Fellowship.

Taravat Talepasand was born 1979 of Iranian parents in Eugene, Oregon. She retained close family and artistic ties to Iran, Esfehan, where she was trained in the challenging discipline of Persian miniature painting. Paying close attention to the cultural taboos identified by distinctly different social groups, particularly those of gender, race and socioeconomic position, her work reflects the cross-pollination, or lack thereof, in our “modern” society.

Talepasand’s works on paper and egg tempera paintings draw on realism to bring a focus on an acceptable beauty and its relationship with art history under the guise of traditional Persian painting. Her interest, however, is in painting a present which is of and intrinsically linked to the past, making it easily understood by the Iranian and inductive of assumption for the Westerner. “ Since I myself am considered a taboo in that I am a conglomerate of equal, yet irreconcilable cultural forces, my work challenges plebeian notions of acceptable behavior,” says the artist.

beta pictoris gallery / Maus Contemporary is a contemporary art gallery and space dedicated to supporting creativity with a focus on experimental and issue driven works. Through representing emerging, established, and internationally recognized artists, the gallery is committed to bringing a global perspective to contemporary issues and practices across the visual arts. The program consists of exhibitions, print publications, and media outreach.
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