New Art Dealers Alliance Art Fair, New York: Orkideh Torabi (in collaboration with Western Exhibitions)
Horton Gallery will feature, in collaboration with Western Exhibitions, a solo booth of new paintings by Orkideh Torabi, installed atop wallpaper custom-designed by the artist.
Orkideh Torabi imagines herself as a director who, through painting, resituates the power dynamics of patriarchal societies. Rendered with simple button-like eyes, injured or missing noses, unnatural skin hues, and tacked-on mustaches, her unabashedly humorous paintings imbue the protagonists with an emasculated and clown-like state of being. She juxtaposes her cartoonish images of contemporary against vivid patterns that are influenced by Persian miniatures, small yet highly detailed illustrations that have been an integral part of Iranian culture since the 13th century. In doing so, Torabi makes explicit that the past and present become interwoven. Using fabric dye on cotton fabric through an idiosyncratic transfer process that generates saturated surfaces, Torabi’s paintings have a batik or watercolor-like fluidity in which her men revel.
Orkideh Torabi received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, and she received her MA and BA from The University of Art in Tehran. Torabi’s solo and two-person shows include Yes, Please & Thank You in Los Angeles, Western Exhibitions in Chicago, and Horton Gallery in New York City. Group shows include Andrew Rafacz Gallery and the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. Torabi has participated in artist residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Nebraska; the Wassaic Residency Program in New York; and ACRE in Wisconsin. She was selected for the 2017 Midwest issue of New American Paintings and has work in the Microsoft Art Collection in Redmond, WA. Torabi lives and works in Chicago.