Armory Art Fair, Javit Centre, 429 11th Avenue, New York, NY 10001, Booth P9 (Presents Section)
8 Sept, (VIP preview day invitation only)
9 Sept, 12am - 8pm
10 Sept, 12am - 7pm
11 Sept, 12am - 6pm
For our second Armory Show presentation, Circle will show a selection of new paintings by Abdelrassoul and silk works by Karmali. Abdelrassoul’s paintings continue her exploration of her place as a woman, and her relationships within a patriarchal society. Karmali’s silk-works focus migration and transformation of materials across geographies and economies, extending investigations began in earlier works. Abdelrassoul’s painterly language and approach to visual storytelling offers a counterpoint to Karmali’s investigations of material and form.
Souad Abdelrassoul, (Egyptian, b. 1974) Abdelrassoul lives and works in Cairo. Her artistic practice spans various media; drawing, painting, sculpture and graphic design. Working between the abstract and figurative, she connects human and animal figures to the Earth believing we are a part of it. Her metamorphosed figures do not seek to depict physical beauty but attempt to reflect on the connections between the human race and the natural elements of life; earth, metal, animals and plants. Tree-like figures with branching veins and arteries, and giant insect-like creatures merge on her canvases to remind the viewer of the vital bond between our internal lives and the exterior world we live in. Abdelrassoul re-conceptualises the way we perceive space and re-purposes notions of form, science and nature into something strikingly personal, she exalts in the feminine, the emotional and nature. Throughout her work, she tells stories, sometimes using myths and legends that we recognise, to draw attention to how women are forced to evolve and grow in an environment that is oppressive and that restricts the life choices. She questions the role of women in society and cultural history in an unusual and disruptive way.
Abdelrassoul graduated with a BFA in 1998, completed her master’s degree in History of Art in 2005, and in 2012 she completed her PhD in Modern Art History. Since 1998 she has exhibited frequently in group and solo exhibitions in Cairo as well as shows in Nairobi, Beirut and the USA. She has also exhibited at international art fairs in London and Marrakech. In 2022, Souad Abdelrassoul's The Magician (2021), was acquired by the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA. She is included in 300 Women Artists, forthcoming from Phaidon in 2022.
Tahir Karmali, (Kenyan b. 1987) Karmali lives and works in New York and is primarily an investigator of materials and vernacular design. Focusing on their underlying source – as currency, as markers of cultural identity, or as an exploitable artifact. He is invested in transforming these materials into varying formats (sculptural installations, prints, textile works) that are deceptively beautiful or attractive, as an art form, allowing the viewer to savour them as primary material before a layer of trauma (of migration, of displacement, of labor) slowly reveals itself. Tahir's work is based not only on the physical experience of moving between borders, and globally diverse cultures, but also on how certain elemental materials move through these same routes and are thus transformed per their use value in each space, including within the art world. Karmali is combines digital photography and portraiture with paper making. This allows him to deal directly with the material to craft concepts around the process and abstract how the portrait is presented. He is using this method to discuss nationality, authenticity, documentation, and borders for migrant populations in Africa. In his work takes his own Indian-Kenyan heritage to discuss colonial migrant narratives.
Karmali received a Masters degree in digital photography from The School of Visual Arts in New York in 2015. After numerous solo exhibition and group show success in various countries, including (selected) Water Scarcity: Perpetual Thirst in 2022 at Wave Hill, New York in 2022, Heimaten, Museum für Gewerbe, Hamburg in 2021, Omniscient: Queer Documentation in an Image Culture, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York 2021, Second Careers, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, 2020, Paper Boarders, IPCNY, New York, 2019Tracing Obsolescence, Apexart, New York, 2018; Immigrant Artists and the American West, Tacoma Art Museum, Washington, 2018; New Threads, Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, 2018; Biennal Forografica Bogota, 2017, Bogota, Columbia and PAPER:work, Pioneer Works, New York, 2017, Karmali’s work has also featured in the Addis Foto Fest, Lagos Photo Festival. In 2019, he was one of the artists commissioned to create work following the inaugural Open Call for The Shed Museum in New York. Recent residencies include; the Montelo artist residency in Nevada 2020 and the Watermill Centre, New York State in 2021.