being time
May 11 - June 22, 2024
re.riddle - Minnesota street project, San Francisco
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
The illusion of a life cycle is persistent for conscious beings, as life and consciousness are interlinked and circumscribed by measurable boundaries. Time is thus relative, often experienced through a veil of linearity with a single beginning and end. In his exhibition Being Time, Kamran Samimi interrogates the nature of mortality and the relationship between human and nonhuman worlds. The work in this exhibition questions: how might a reimagined temporal ontology impact our relationship with the environment and the non-human entities within it?
Samimi believes that time is an illusion and that the eternal is perceptible through communion with nature. His artistic practice is informed by natural and indigenous ephemera —stones, wood, pigment, water and land— which he uses to explore the complex metahistories that tie us to both our human and non-human ancestors. Samimi’s paintings and sculpture affirm this understanding of reality, the stratification of existence across space and time in which the ordinary and the sacred are revealed to be two sides of the same stone, made smooth by running water.
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Through his work, Samimi extrapolates existential truths from natural ephemera, recognizing that all organic matter possesses an inherent agency and animism, and as such is subject to incessant transformations, a constant state of becoming reminiscent of an ouroboros. Experiencing Nature in this way challenges the conventional hierarchy and fosters a profound interconnectedness that defies the prevailing anthropocentric worldview. In this context, non-human entities, above and below ground, may become teachers for guidance. They are perceived as silent witnesses observing generations and absorbing the histories of their surroundings. Objects of nature are our ancestors holding rememberings of boundless time.
The artworks in the exhibition manifest the sentiment of being time, bridging the tactile with the metaphysical as embodied temporal experiences. Working site-specifically, Samimi’s stone impressions, large-scale stone sculptures, and mist paintings are created by way of embodied remembering, recalling the layered histories from the stones and natural ephemera from Ocean Beach, Mile Rock Beach, Sutro Baths and Twin Peaks in San Francisco. The artist’s stone impressions reveal reciprocal gestures between his hands and those of nature, interpreting the stories and essence of stone in faint traces and bold marks on the canvas. The resulting image is a testament to the dynamic exchange between past and present, countering our preconceived notions of permanence and finite life-cycles. Mountains erode before our eyes, if only we could pause long enough to notice.
In the same vein, the ethereal quality of Samimi’s mist paintings evoke temporal ambiguity. The paintings are a collaborative process between the artist and the elements, characterized by multiple sessions of paint drips, intermittent exposure to fog and mist, meticulous observation, and reverent reflections on the spirit of place. Samimi's recognition of the ravages of time extends to a grouping of small obelisks, each a salvaged fragment from columnar basalt. Standing steadfast, their skin is adorned with marks and scars which denote countless lifetimes since their extraction from the earth. Samimi bears witness to this unfolding ecology, paying homage to the animacy and spirituality inherent in the stones, wind, sea, and fog. Here, people and place serve as mutual remedies for one another, transcending the constraints of time immemorial.