Hangama Amiri at COOPER COLE

Artist: Hangama Amiri

Exhibition title: Mirrors and Faces

Venue: COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada

Date: September 24 – November 6, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and COOPER COLE, Toronto

COOPER COLE is pleased to present Mirrors and Faces, a solo presentation of the work of Hangama Amiri. This is the artist’s first exhibition at the gallery.

In this new body of work, Amiri reflects on questions of ‘home’ and memory after migration. Amiri’s penetrating observations of her domestic space opens up into the emotive and imaginative aspects of cultural memory, touching on feelings of loneliness, isolation, love, intimacy, and longing. She elaborates on these inquiries with fantastical elements such as foliage, birds, tears, and spilled wine, overlaid and overflowing out of the images, visualizing a weaving of internal dialogues with lived experience.

While the artist was creating this work and reflecting on her experience as an Afghan woman in the United States, feelings of loss and mourning quickly deepened as her new country of residence retreated from their occupation in Afghanistan and Amiri’s hometown of Kabul was taken over by the Taliban. The artist’s examination of internal conflict and physical confinement took on new dimensions. In Wounded Deer, Amiri depicts herself looking at an arrow that is aimed at her eyes, at the same time as it punctures a deer on its side. Set in a swirling, surreal landscape, this work expresses the artist’s feelings of vulnerability and betrayal as an Afghan woman. Her works are large in scale, negotiating desires to occupy, dominate, and assert power.

Trained in painting, Amiri takes a painterly approach to her textile compositions. Sourcing most of her materials from an Afghan-owned store in New York’s fashion district, the artist looks for fabrics as one would look for oils and acrylics. Colour, texture, and composition remain central, but Amiri’s interest in textile is rooted in the medium’s flexibility, functionality, and intimacy. Textile, according to the artist, awakens the senses because of its relationship to the body, insinuations of touch, and its ability to carry memories.

Hangama Amiri (b. 1989, Kabul, Afghanistan) works predominantly in textile to create images that reflect on ideas of home. Using a painterly approach to colour and materials, Amiri reflects on how everyday objects are imbued with cultural memory. Amiri holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was a Canadian Fulbright and Post-Graduate Fellow at Yale University School of Art and Sciences, and has completed residencies at the Banﬀ Centre for Arts & Creativity, Joya AiR Residency Program in Almería, Spain, World of CO Residency program in Sofia, Bulgaria, and at Long Road Projects in Jacksonville, Florida. Amiri won the 2011 Lieutenant Governor’s Community Volunteerism Award and the 2013 Portia White Protege Award. She has exhibited internationally at T293 Gallery, Rome; Laurie Swim Gallery, Lunenburg; the New Museum, New York; Banﬀ Centre for Arts & Creativity, Banﬀ; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Paramo Gallery, Guadalajara; and Charles Moﬀett Gallery, New York; among others. Amiri lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Hangama Amiri, Mirrors and Faces, 2021, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Hangama Amiri, The Wonders of the Night, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, net mesh, suede, velvet, and found fabric, 122″ X 107″, 309.88cm X 271.78cm

Hangama Amiri, Late by Myself, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, suede, and colour pencil, 92″ X 79″, 233.68cm X 200.66cm

Hangama Amiri, Wounded Deer, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, suede, net mesh, and found fabric, 98″ X 75″, 248.92cm X 190.5cm

Hangama Amiri, Self-portrait with the Croton Petra Plants, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, velvet, net mesh, colour pencil, and found fabric, 80″ X 58″, 203.2cm X 147.32cm

Hangama Amiri, The Lovers I / The Chanting Storks, 2021, Chiffon muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, acrylic paint, suede, and found fabric, 69″ X 78″, 175.26cm X 198.12cm

Hangama Amiri, The Fallen Dream, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, and silk, 69.5″ X 56″, 176.53cm X 142.24cm

Hangama Amiri, The Pillar of Time, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, and suede, 53″ X 72″, 134.62cm X 182.88cm

Hangama Amiri, The Lovers II / Him and I, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, net mesh, velvet, suede, and found fabric, 57″ X 66″, 144.78cm X 167.64cm

Hangama Amiri, What the Water Told Me, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, and silk, 62.5″ X 48″, 158.75cm X 121.92cm

Hangama Amiri, Self-portrait with Tooti Parrot, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, net mesh, suede, colour pencil, velvet, and found fabric, 58.5″ X 44.5″, 148.59cm X 113.03cm

Hangama Amiri, The Labyrinths of Love, 2021, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, net mesh, colour pencil, and found fabric, 40″ X 30″, 101.6cm X 76.2cm