fabricated painted material by pouran jinchi
The Third Line and Banana Republic are proud to present Fabricated: Painted material by Pouran Jinchi.
Pouran Jinchi incorporates delicately crafted paintings of patterned and branded fabrics with traditional calligraphy and Islamic geometric design to form her own unique line of post modern headgear. By focusing on the garment and labelling, Jinchi reconfigures these high end lifestyle items in an effort to articulate a personalised identity, so much so, that the wearer of these garments disappears and only the object remains.
Jinchi trained as a calligrapher while growing up in Mashad, Iran. Her work typically focuses on the incorporation of the traditional aspects of her culture and calligraphy to pursue her own aesthetic investigations. In Fabricated, Jinchi examines the blending of her ancient language and the new language of commercialism where, Nike, Burberry and ancient calligraphy morph into one creating customary head gear – these gauche of paper works make comment of ethnic marketing, deconstructing notions of identity and renegotiating how these identities are formed in a globalised society.
Other works in this series feature the intricately composed patterns where ornate thread-like lines weave in and out forming a macro view of the fabric. Jinchi then creates another layer to these works by adding calligraphy based forms with their fluid and aesthetically formed design. These calligraphy based patterns are usually based on Farsi script or poems, however no words or meaning are legible, although the viewer cannot escape being influenced by the cultural weight of their origins.
Elements of humour feature in Jinchi’s paintings -– a black skull and cross bone motif demonstrates a light hearted approach to her work. The use of mischievous sculptural pieces also show a tongue and cheek kind of humour, where quirky configurations of three dimensional headgears are also laden with Gucci and camouflage patterns referencing an adolescent-like appreciation.
The Fabricated series is the first of its kind for Jinchi, who is an artist whose work continually evolves as her ideas and motivations shift. Over the span of the artist’s career, many areas have been explored such as “Antworks”, black and white based works which documented the patterns of ant’s movements, the "Derakht" series (meaning “tree” in Farsi) which is black and white work inspired by trees and foliage. Then followed Jinchi’s “Recitation” series, which comprised of calligraphic symbols sighting text from the Qu’ran, but only the vowels present creating an indecipherable language.
Even though many style and themes have been explored, Jinchi retains her calligraphy background with abstract expressionism to convey these ideas. Jinchi’s work always stays true to a consciousness which acknowledges both past and present artistic production.
