Sanaz Mazinani | Frames of the Visible

Exhibition Dates: May 5 – June 9, 2012

Reception for the Artist: Saturday, May 5, 2-5pm

Artist Talk: Saturday, May 5,1-2p (RSVP as seating is limited)

The gallery is pleased to present our first solo exhibition by Canadian-Iranian photographer Sanaz Mazinani.  In “Frames of the Visible,” Mazinani examines the disassociation that occurs between an event and its photographic record. Using destabilizing images of war mined from online news media outlets, Mazinani constructs photographic collages that collapse the intimations of the original image, thus creating a new representation of conflict.

Mazinani explores the relationship between perception and representation by drawing from concepts such as censorship, scale, and the body as a site of action or violence. For instance, juxtaposing appropriated images of a female suicide bomber and of media darling Paris Hilton, creates a new meaning that can affect our understanding of an image and how it is used to illustrate and construct history. The geometric patterns created by sequentially coupling, repeating, mirroring, and multiplying her source material references Islamic ornamentation, pairing traditional Eastern and contemporary Western image production techniques. These works examine the radical ways in which individuals perceive the same object with differing complexity. Mazinani seeks to recognize how political realities are represented in photography. She visions the perspectival frames of warfare, while acknowledging the complicated nature of our modern existence in a globalized world.

Mazinani (b. Tehran, Iran, 1978) is an artist, curator, and educator based in San Francisco and Toronto. Born in Tehran, Iran, she holds her undergraduate degree from Ontario College of Art & Design University and her MFA from Stanford University. She co-edited ALMANAC: An Index of Current Work and Thought a collaborative publication addressing the relationship between theory and practice (Stanford University, 2010). She was the 2011 Visual Arts Curator for the Iranian Canadian Centre for Art & Culture’s interdisciplinary arts triennial, Tirgan. Most recently she was Guest Curator at Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University where she curated “Edward Weston: On Light, Line and Form.”

Her work has been exhibited throughout North America including solo exhibits at Toronto Image Works Gallery, Toronto, Ontario; Carnegie Gallery, Dundas, Ontario; and Art & Architecture Library at Stanford University, Stanford, California. She has received numerous grants from Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council and has been the subject of articles in Border Crossings, Nuva Luz, NOW Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, and Dide.

This exhibition also coincides with the launch of Mazinani’s catalogue, Unfolding Images, published by Bulger Gallery Press in April 2012 and co-authored by Jeremiah Barber, David Fresko and Mohammadreza Mirzaei.