Gallery 1957, London is proud to announce a solo exhibition of works by Kour Pour (b. 1987, UK), running from March 17 to April 26, 2022. The exhibition marks his first in the country of his birth.
Pour’s creative point of view disrupts simplistic notions of cultural hybridity, appropriation, and originality. New works on view at Gallery 1957 see the artist creating silkscreen prints based on imagery from illustrated texts of the Persian epic Shahnameh [The Book of Kings] by the poet Ferdowsi (977-1010 CE). Presenting the works with the text boxes redacted – a comment on the artist’s inability to speak his mother tongue and the universal limitations of language – the shape of the canvases eschew the art-historical square. Called ‘extractions,’ the series expands on the artist’s ongoing interest in mixing visual culture across boundaries and borders, with the ‘redacted’ pieces reminiscent of the shaped canvases of American Minimalists such as Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly. In other works, Pour explores the cultural exchange of tiger imagery across China, Korea, and Japan, creating and recreating works inspired by different contexts across bright canvases reminiscent of Western Pop art.
As an immigrant who has lived between worlds, the notion of home is both compelling and chimeric for Pour, the artist explains, “When someone asks me where home is, the answer is multi-layered. And this experience of holding multiple identities and truths becomes a part of my art. I’m working to show how intertwined histories and the movement of cultures are directly linked to all of our personal biographies. This exhibition is sort of a homecoming – I left the UK at age 17, and I’m returning 17 years later.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a critical text by Dr. Shiva Balaghi, cultural historian at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
About Kour Pour
Kour Pour (b. 1987, UK) has quickly developed a reputation for meticulously composed and delicately rendered artworks that intersect diverse material and aesthetic traditions, allowing for a remapping of the standard understanding of “Eastern/Western” cultural exchange.
Fostering forms and techniques from numerous cultures and time periods, Pour’s truly global vision weaves together representational imagery, abstract patterning, and ornamental elements to create new hybrid artworks. Pour’s synthesis of image and process often connects different art histories in an attempt to highlight the cultural exchanges that lead to artistic innovation and disrupt the notion of singular originality.
Recent exhibitions include Wild Garden, a dual-venue presentation at SHRINE and Sargent’s Daughters, NYC, and Familiar Spirits at Kavi Gupta, Chicago; Returnee at The Club, Tokyo, 2019; Manzareh/Keshiki/Landscape at Ever Gold [Projects], San Francisco, 2019; Abrash at Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, 2018; Polypainting at Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, 2018, and GNYP Gallery, Berlin, 2018. Select group exhibitions include A Boundless Drop to a Boundless Ocean at the Orlando Museum of Art; Decoration Never Dies, Anyway at Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Museum, Tokyo, 2017; and Labyrinth(s) at Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, 2016.
Title: Kour Pour
Dates: March 17 – April 26, 2022
Address: Gallery 1957, London
1 Hyde Park Gate
London
SW7 5EW
UK
