In the summer of 2020, during the height of Covid, Aminlari quarantined in the mountains near Atlanta, Georgia. Away from his formal studio in Brooklyn, his first foray with ceramics began in a makeshift, outdoor studio. Alongside works on paper, the exhibition includes six small sculptures and an installation of ceramic tiles made over a two-month period. The tile installation mirrors the patterns from the embroidered paper works seen on the walls. Glazed in different shades of blue, the tile-like pieces lie horizontally, but aren’t affixed to a surface, allowing for infinite possibility in the composition.
The shapes seen in both the works on paper and the ceramics come from a single pattern source developed by the artist. Each piece is an iteration of this original pattern, unifying the collection. The six-winged, cylindrical sculptures reference a vase or vessel in a nod to domesticity. Similarly, Aminlari often cites domestic labor through his process of embroidery in the works on paper. Here, the matte underglaze and jewel toned ceramics echo the paper works made from coats of flat blue gouache and shimmering gold thread. The artist states, “It is in the action of dismantlement and reconfiguration that something new begins to appear. In the voids, the in-between spaces of the blue gouache, animalistic and human type forms emerge that resemble totems or capitals. For me, these works at once examine and reshape the iconography of nationalism in order to open up new possibilities.”