Maryam Amiryani / Mamie Tinkler
Objecthood
April 23–May 29, 2021
Maryam Amiryani, Flight, 2021. Oil on linen over wood, 50 panels, 6 × 3 7⁄8 inches / 15.24 x 9.84 cm each
Ulterior Gallery is pleased to present Objecthood, a two-person exhibition of works by Maryam Amiryani and Mamie Tinkler. Amiryani and Tinkler both find inspiration in objects that they encounter in their everyday surroundings. Working in the tradition of still-life painting, the two artists play with the tropes of realistic depiction, systems of classification, and signifiers of identity and difference.
Maryam Amiryani’s Flight consists of fifty small oil paintings that are based on the artist’s fascination with feathers, an interest that began when a local specimen caught her eye on a trip to Colombia several years ago. After this first find, feathers started finding her—discovered on walks in West Texas, where the artist resides, or passed along from friends who were aware of her interests, and eventually identified and purchased through feather suppliers. Amiryani’s study of feathers came to encompass their physical workings—and thus the physics of flight—and their history as cultural signifiers, items of trade, and commodities. In Flight, fifty feathers are depicted on small panels with Amiryani’s customary precision and clarity. Displayed in a grid, the series suggests a taxonomy, yet each feather is brilliantly individuated, as if each is a creature with a distinct personality.
Objects in Mamie Tinkler’s work take part in the narrative-like landscapes that the artist builds, lights, photographs, and then translates into paintings. In her most recent painting, The Spelunker, Tinkler’s brush, as if exploring the scenery, traces the intricate forms of vegetables, feathers, ceramics, and other objects as they come into view. Reflections on acrylic squares and transparent color gels seem to add an extra dimension into the visual field, evoking the experience of peering into a polyhedral kaleidoscope. In Tinkler’s paintings, there is no hierarchy—each reflection, object, light, color, and movement has its own special place to fit, somewhere between abstraction and representation, and its own role to play in the greater ensemble.
Maryam Amiryani was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1967. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Amiryani and her family relocated to Paris, France. Several years later, she moved to the United States, where she completed her education, obtaining a MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art, New York, NY in 1995. She also holds a BFA in Graphic Design from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, and a BS in Asian History from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Amiryani lives and works in Marfa, TX. Many of Amiryani’s paintings are currently on long-term view as a public art project at By Art Matters (OEli) in Hangzhou, China, run by the Italian curator Francesco Bonami.
Mamie Tinkler lives and works in New York, NY. She graduated from Columbia University with a BA in 2000 and obtained a MFA from Hunter College in 2005. Tinkler’s work has been exhibited at solo and group exhibitions including Ulterior Gallery, New York, NY (solo, 2020); The Armory Show, New York, NY (2020); The Suburban, Oak Park, IL (solo, 2015); The Good Earth at Kerry Schuss, New York, NY (2015); Days Inn at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, NY (2014); and Drawings, Drawings, Photographs at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY (2011). Her solo exhibition at Ulterior Gallery last year was featured in the New York Times and Artforum.