modulations: Andrew Rafacz
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modulations
Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL
12 September - 31 October, 2015
Abdolreza Aminlari uses vintage 18K gold and colored thread to draw on and into paper, exploring both physical and personal psychological space. Concerned with the possibilities of repetition and iteration that are historically fundamental to the act of sewing, his unique designs reference geometry, urban infrastructure and quilt making. Utilizing the obsessive rigidity of patterning but also engaged in a more open-ended improvisatory practice commensurate with freehand drawing, the resultant forms retain their originally conceived structures but also resonate with the poetic capacity of something uniquely born from the mind and hand.
Aminlari utilizes the iterative possibilities of standard geometric shapes, but in the layering and compiling something else emerges. The final design is more abstracted and less immediately referential. For the artist, the ritualistic and repetitive process of making these works is essentially one of domestic labor, and the physical passage of time becomes an essential experience for both him and the viewer. In his series of stacked gold parallelograms, the result of this labor is painterly, with the antique gold thread, often in a variety of tones, nearly covering the entire paper and vibrating with a lush, visceral surface.