Video and Paintings Investigating Hope as a Refugee

/EINPresswire.com/ -- SANTA MONICA, CA--(Marketwired - January 27, 2016) - 18th Street Arts Center, a top US artist residency program, presents a residency and exhibition by visiting artist, Tel Aviv-based Elham Rokni in its Atrium Gallery, with a reception on Saturday, February 6-8pm. Rokni's residency is made possible by a grant from the Y & S Nazarian Family Foundation. The exhibition features new works centered around a home-movie video piece titled The Wedding and is on view until March 12, 2016.

Rokni's works in video installation and drawing use her personal history, as a refugee from Iran who settled in Israel, to explore collective experiences of loss and displacement. Alternating between dreamscape and documentary, Rokni's works investigate the disconnection between people's hopes and expectations and their realities. She uses art to describe the imaginative, unconscious dimensions of experience. The exhibition, also title The Wedding, features paintings in addition to video work. The ceremony featured in the show is her parents'. It took place during the halcyon days before Iran's popular revolution gave way to a religious fundamentalist regime.

Elham Rokni received her BFA and MFA from Bezalel Academy in Israel. She has participated in international film festivals and has received grants from the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Yehushua Rabinovich Tel Aviv Foundation for the Arts, and the Fund for Video Art and Experimental Cinema in Israel. Her works can be found in various private collections.

Rokni's work will be presented in two simultaneous solo exhibitions, at 18th Street Arts Center and also at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery in Venice, CA. Additionally her work Crossing the Dune is included in the exhibition Islamic Art Now, Part 2, currently on view, and in the permanent collection at LACMA.

The Wedding
Exhibition: January 19 - March 12, 2016
Reception: February 20, 6-8pm
18th Street Arts Center | Space
1639 18th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90404

LINKS:
Exhibition: http://18thstreet.org/events/exhibition-rokni
Artist: http://18thstreet.org/residents/elham-rokni

18TH STREET ARTS CENTER is an artist residency program provoking public dialogue through contemporary art-making. 18th Street's residencies, exhibitions, public talks, and publications encourage, showcase, and support the creation of cutting-edge contemporary art and foster collaboration and interaction between artists locally, nationally, and internationally.

Additional information about 18th Street Arts Centers programming and artists can be found at 18thstreet.org

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Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/1/26/11G080328/Images/The_Wedding_Guests_(Best_Dressed)-762a0ae6af61964497925120c9eed892.jpg
Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/1/26/11G080328/Images/Black_Eclipse_7-1c97a7a3f5c9a645b785a61a986b3d25.jpg
Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/1/26/11G080328/Images/The_Wedding_Guests_(The_Abdis),_2015-8703fc15784b8eaebfd050a774e145af.jpg

PRESS CONTACT: 
Nicole Rademacher
Director of Communications & Outreach
T 310 453 3711 x104
nrademacher@18thstreet.org

Elham Rokni, The Wedding Guests (Best Dressed), 2015, courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian

Elham Rokni, Black Eclipse 7, 2015, courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian

Elham Rokni, The Wedding Guests (The Abdis), 2015, courtesy of Shulamit Nazarian.