Art: Yasi Alipour at Geary
Cyanotype by Yasi Alipour. All Images ©Yasi Alipour 2021
The[e] [geometric] stalactites from the Court of Lions in Alhambra do not only serve the practical function of supporting the roof, but also symbolize the descent of light into the world of material forms. They are like rays of light cast from the world of the supernal Sun toward the abode of earthly opacity. -Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Islamic Art and Spirituality, p. 53. 1987
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The exhibition “Mutual Convergences”, curated by Phong Bui of Brooklyn Rail, is on view through this Friday, August 20, at Geary, 208 Bowery New York, NY (11AM-6PM or by appointment: info [at] geary [dot] nyc). The show consists of Alipour’s small and large-scale sculptural paper works of toner paper and cyanotypes installed alongside mixed-media sculptures by Cy Morgan. Find more information about Geary here and Yasi’s studio practice here.
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When asked what medium she works in, I have often heard Yasi Alipour reply with earnest spark:
“I fold.”
This devoted practice, with its resultant geometric revelations, bears lineage to the devotional arts of Islam-- from the moaraq (ceramic tile mosaics) and the gereh-chini (geometric woodwork) of Alipour’s native Iran-- as much as to the sublime latent in geometric forms of the 20th century modernists of her decade-long home in New York City. But there is something singular in Alipour’s work that speaks to her multiplicity of roles as an artist, educator, and writer; her curious exploration through practice, complexly informed through her studies in mathematics at the University of Tehran, photography at School of Visual Arts, sculpture at Columbia, and her current expanded practice.
It is difficult to describe Alipour’s works through form alone-- they are at once photography, sculpture, drawing, and print. Maps of intuition informed by Alipour’s mathematical training. Lines are imprinted on toner paper through the additive process of patient gestures, and revealed through the subtractive friction of creases. The paper itself shifts to claim its own space--rises, dips, like rocky planes of shifted land. The heights and furrows cast shadows which interact with the already present subtleties of shade within the variegated blues of the cyanotypes: creating hypnotic, undulating bodies, holding a trajectory of the touch of sun’s light on each plane.
The upward lift and downward pull is most immediately felt when encountering the large scale works on toner paper. Negative and positive space warp into dimensions folded onto themselves, being coexistent in the subtractive lines of the creases, the dark swathes of untouched toner, and the swirling array of overlapping patterns they create. I cannot help but think of the “interwoven continuum” of time-space-- as these four dimensional volumes are created from the material space they occupy, as well as the time the artist moved between patiently counting fold ratios and inspired free improvisation. A trace of decision, energy, and time inscribed in each fold.
-Julia Santoli
August 18, 2021. Brooklyn, NY.
©2021 Julia Santoli