The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield will present “Hangama Amiri: A Homage to Home,” the first solo museum exhibition of work by the Afghan Canadian artist whose work combines painting and printmaking techniques with textiles ”” weaving together stories based on memories of her homeland and her diasporic experience. The exhibit will be on view from Feb. 5 to June 11.
Amiri fled Kabul, Afghanistan, with her family in 1996 when she was seven years old. After moving through numerous countries over several years, they immigrated to Canada in 2005 when Amiri was a teenager. Her choice of materials stems from autobiographical origins ”” her mother taught her to sew, her uncle was a tailor and her textiles reference the colors, fabrics and content she remembers from the bazaars and the streets of Kabul.
With fabrics sourced from an Afghan-owned shop in New York City”™s fashion district, Amiri uses collage techniques to create large-scaled works with frayed edges. Her textile works are made from layering fabrics, piecing and sewing them together and then painting and embroidering on the surfaces.
Amiri will debut more than a dozen new textile works and a neon sculpture. Her meta-worlds are centered on the lives of women and share storylines that monumentalize their personal resilience and public resistance.
Amiri received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and she was a Canadian Fulbright and Postgraduate Fellow at Yale University School of Arts and Sciences.