Alia Ali
Pomm
Alia Ali ( عاليه علي ) is a Yemeni-Bosnian-US multi-media artist. A child of migrant linguists, Ali has traveled to sixty-seven countries, lived in and between seven, and grown up among five languages. Her migrations have led her to process the world through interactive experiences and the belief that the damage of translation and interpretation of written language has dis-served particular communities, resulting in the threat of their exclusion, rather than a means of understanding. As an artist who exists on the borders of identifying as West Asian, Eastern European, a United States citizen, queer, culturally Muslim yet spiritually independent, her work explores cultural binaries, challenges culturally sanctioned oppression, and confronts conflicted notions of gender, politics, media, and citizenship. Working between photography, video, and installation, Ali’s work addresses the politicization of the body, histories of colonization, imperialism, sexism, and racism through projects that take pattern and textile as their primary motif. Textile, in particular, has been a constant in Ali’s practice. Her strong belief that textile is significant to all of us, reminds us that we are born into it, we sleep in it, we eat on it, we define ourselves by it, we shield ourselves with it, and eventually, we die in it. While it unites us, it also divides us physically and symbolically. Her work broadens into immersive installations utilizing light, pattern, and textile to move past language and offer an expansive, experiential understanding of self, culture, and nation. Ali is currently expanding her practice by drawing on stories from Yemen including the nostalgic past of Queen Belquis of Saba (also known as the Queen of Sheba). By investigating histories of the distant past, she addresses the realities of the dystopian present in order to carve out spaces for radically imagined possibilities for the future in what has evolved to be Yemeni Futurism.

 

Alia Ali's work has been featured in the Financial Times, Le Monde, Vogue Arabia, Art Review, and Hyperallergic. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in collections including Princeton University, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, and numerous international private collections. She lives and works in New Orleans, Paris and Jaipur.

Pierre Bergian
Hotel de Beauharnais
Pierre Bergian expresses his fascination for architecture through his paintings by exploring space and structure, making use of the presence of architectural components. His current work depicts a selection of interiors from the pantheon of 20th century design, from Tony Duquette's Dawnridge to Karl Lagerfeld’s Paris apartment. Bergian’s rooms convey a sense of breathing, pulsing characters, with their richness of personality fully rendered in the artist’s loose, impressionistic brushwork.



Bergian built his career painting primarily empty interiors and emphasizing their architecture and play of light, inviting the viewer to imagine their past and future lives. In contrast, in his present works Bergian depicts rooms as they were actually lived in. One has the unexpected chance to see him interpret the canon of classic furniture forms, whether tracing the curve of a Louis XV bergère or limning the lacquered folds of a Coromandel screen.



Bergian studied at the University of Ghent and has published writings on the topic of design and architecture. He has had solo exhibitions at Purdy Hicks, London; Gallery Laurent de Puybaudet, Paris; Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam, and his work in included in the permanent collection at the British Museum in London.