Los Angeles, CA – Join conceptual artist Gita Khashabi on Saturday, April 6, 2002 as she unveils her latest body of work Chadoor Study at a brand new gallery space called SHE@studio in Century City.  The artist reception which runs from 7:00pm until 11:00pm kicks off a month-long exhibit by Iranian/American Khashabi who is known for creative visual presentations which explore the hidden structures of female Muslim identity while attempting to expose the bias of Western culture created by female Muslim limitations.  Her April exhibit will consider the chadoor (the traditional female covering; a Persian word for a tent or a veil in English) and its implications in modern Middle Eastern society through various installations such as mixed-media paintings, sketches, assemblages, a video installation and a food installation.  The public will have an opportunity to meet artist Khashabi and to discuss her work and history as a visual artist and her unique subject matter at the reception.

Of the various installations on view on April 6^th “Soffre-h”, the food installation, will be the most interactive.  Khashabi explains, “Soffre-h (meaning tablecloth) is a traditional Muslim religious offering made by women for women consisting of food, sweets, text, songs, dance and tears.  The process of preparing food for a party of fifty women or more each time one desires something from Allah has been kept alive for over fourteen hundred years.“  Customarily women sit around a long, large white tablecloth.  For Khashabi’s installation 200 pounds of sugar will serve as the tablecloth.  The “Soffre-h” begins promptly at 8:30pm and the female art patrons are invited to join in - sit, eat and be part of the installation.

The video installation, “Namaz,” loops a tri-lingual prayer though the “face” of a traditional Prayer Chadoor that is spread open.  And the mixed-media paintings entitled “Body Works” expresses Khashabi’s recurrent themes of female identity through traditional media such as acrylics along with wax and women’s body hair.  The assemblage portion entitled “Even Barbie’s Are Veiled by Law” displays Barbie dolls in black chadoors installed on a map of Tehran.

Khashabi’s art exhibit also examines the contrast between the bleak, black chadoor and the rich visual structures and decorative patterns of Islamic architecture and their written language.  This is especially evident in Khashabi’s series of sketches, which consist of geometric chadoor studies on Xeroxed Islamic architecture, entitled “Chadoor, an Outdoor Study.”  It refers to the anonymous veiled female form against the backdrop of ornamental, mosaic, tiled Islamic architecture and the sensual look of their calligraphy and text.  Khashabi has long been fascinated by the dichotomy between religious and social pressures, which shifted to repress all female expression as simultaneously the architecture began to display the beautiful and ostentatious structures we know today.  With the forced separation of men and women in public places, Khashabi’s “study” shows how men have compensated for this loss of female visual identity by creating fantastical erect structures, sensuous gilded domes and immensely beautiful Mosques.  The virtual female form has been replaced architecturally and Khashabi’s work questions this reality.

Born in Tehran, Iran, Khashabi considers herself in “self-imposed exile,” from her home country.  Studying in Germany and Italy before coming to California in the early 1990s, Khashabi earned a BA in Visual Arts from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA in 1996 and studied for one year in their MFA Creative and Critical writing program.  Khashabi’s art mirrors the daily lives of Muslim women, with new restrictions that were placed on their freedom twenty years ago by the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Currently living in Los Angeles, Khashabi has had two other exhibitions focusing on the chadoor recently.  She was invited to present her performance piece entitled “Chadoor” for the 2001 Day of Remembrance at the Japanese American National Museum on February 16, 2002 and by the Levantine Cultural Center in a short play series, The New Millennium Project: Response to September 11^th at Beyond Baroque on December 20, 2001.  She has also been involved in many group and solo exhibitions since coming to California at such galleries as Track 16 and Side Street Projects.

For this upcoming art exhibit, a 5,000 square foot area has been generously donated for Khashabi’s use and she hopes to curate other artist’s shows there in the near future.  SHE@studio is located in Watt Plaza at 1875 Century Park East, Suite #1130, Los Angeles, CA 90067.  From Santa Monica Blvd. turn South on Century Park East and then turn right (West) into the first public parking structure (if you hit Constellation Blvd., you’ve gone too far).  Parking is free for all Chadoor Study guests. 

For those who miss the opportunity to meet Gita Khashabi and experience her work during the opening night reception of this new exhibit, the SHE@studio will be open the next day, Sunday, April 7^th at noon and each subsequent weekend thereafter through the month of April from 12noon until 5:00pm.
 

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For more information contact Lynn Hasty at Green Galactic at (323) 466-5141 or lynn@greengalactic.com. To contact SHE@studio directly call 310-556-1711.