October 25, 2007 – LMAKprojects is pleased to present two solo exhibitions, Birth of Pattern: Negar Ahkami and Imperfectionism: Nava Lubelski. These shows will be the last in the gallery’s current Williamsburg space.

Installed in the common areas of LMAKprojects is Birth of Pattern, an installation that began as a painting by Negar Ahkami who has worked extensively to update Persian art by depicting the impact of Western culture on traditional Persian domestic and social life. Ahkami revisits the Western genre of harem paintings, with complex references to Iran’s art and culture, giving her Muslim odalisques a humanity that transcends the exoticism of Western representations. Her intimate paintings are often rendered into layered and textured surfaces, lifting away from the flatness of painting. For the first time, Ahkami has fully extended her painting into three-dimensions by creating a social, domestic space for viewers to use, giving physicality to her paintings into real time, making it possible for the viewer to experience the performative aspects of the artist’s fantastic collision of East and West. Birth of Pattern presents a rich visual essay – in painting and functional sculpture – that expresses how the two sides of occidental and oriental cultures have become so inextricably linked that they are no longer distinct.

In LMAKprojects’ project space, Imperfectionism brings together paintings and sculptural works by Nava Lubelski, whose sewn paintings blur the line between craft and contemporary art object. Lubelski’s approach to painting often begins with a stained piece of cloth – a tablecloth, handkerchief, or article of clothing – which she then embellishes with stitching that she reworks into lace-like structures. The happenstance paintings become a cross between abstract expressionism and embroidered surface. Three-dimensional objects included in Imperfectionism double as relics from a bygone era: an Ethan Allen style table with a stained and stitched tablecloth (Something Went Wrong, 2006); a lace glove stitched from thread by the artist (Glove, 2007); and a sculptural object that loosely references a rosette is made from the artist’s tax statements (1999 Tax File, 2007).