Art News

New Paintings and Oil Barrels by Shiva Ahmadi at Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller

NEW YORK, NY.- An exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Shiva Ahmadi will be on view from February 4 through 27, 2010, at
Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller (LTMH) Gallery. Ahmadi has created a dynamic visual language inspired by Persian miniatures and Islamic art and architecture that she uses to explore social and political issues affecting both the Middle East and the West. Shiva Ahmadi: Reinventing the Poetics of Myth examines issues of capitalism and the glory of oil in the Middle East and as well as the dependency of the West on oil. To call attention to these issues, Ahmadi often paints on panels shaped like oil barrels or actual oil barrels, which become transformed into objects of beauty. In 12 paintings and on three full-sized oil barrels, Shiva Ahmadi looks at the “chaos and the instability in the world right now whether it is in the Middle East or elsewhere.” Using her own symbolic