Hamzianpour & Kia is thrilled to present Tales of New York, a solo show by the artist Hossein Edalatkhah. Tales of New York consists of seven large-scale works in oil and acrylic on canvas. All the pieces were created between 2016 and 2018 and are being shown for the first time. This is Edalatkhah’s second solo show in Los Angeles; his first was also presented by Hamzianpour & Kia. The current exhibition is being mounted in conjunction with Edalatkhah’s show Quarantine Orchids, running concurrently at Sahar K. Boluki Art Gallery in Toronto, Canada. 

Tales of New York is a visual diary of a seminal phase in Edalatkhah’s personal journey. Born in Iran, he moved to New York City in 2016, and the process of documenting that experience culminated in this series of paintings. Wandering the streets of his new home city, Edalatkhah felt compelled to paint what he saw and express his feelings about it all. But more than just a very personal expression, this series speaks to a universal experience – of leaving the familiar and entering and assimilating into any new environment. Fittingly, Edalatkhah turns to mythology to help tap into the collective subconscious and bring the universal into the personal. Many of the figures in the paintings are amalgams of various animals and humans; and Edalatkhah renders them at a scale that suggests the larger-than-life monumentality of mythical creatures. Yet these figures are not immediately identifiable as characters from any specific mythos – it is as though Edalatkhah is creating his own new mythologies to help narrate his personal-universal tale – and inviting us to do the same as we ‘narrate’ our own take on each of the works.

Opening reception: Saturday, October 28, 2023, from 4-8 pm

The exhibition will be on display until November 21, 2023.

PRESS RELEASE

Hamzianpour and Kia is located in the Wilshire Miracle Mile at 5225 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 212. The gallery's entrance is on Wilshire on weekdays.

Please enter through the alley (Carling Way) behind the building on the opening day.