June 15, 2023 - June 18, 2023
COOPER COLE is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Afghan-Canadian artist Hangama Amiri in Art Basel 2023.
Hangama Amiri works in textile to create images that reflect on ideas of home. Using a painterly approach to colour and materials, Amiri’s use of fabric is both a reference to traditional Afghan textile techniques, as well as an embracing of fabrics’ relationship to the body, insinuations of touch, and its ability to carry memories. These new works foreground the day to day events and contexts of Afghan women—both in Afghanistan and abroad— in the wake of the Taliban’s rise to power that has severely limited how women navigate social spaces. Amiri highlights intimate moments between women that are pregnant with emotive complexities and political undertones, and suggests the resiliency of the women.
Hangama Amiri (b. 1989, Peshawar, 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.
