Flora and Fauna iv, 2020
Silkscreen and ink on paper
30 x 22 in.
Pantea Karimi's multidisciplinary work focuses on the interconnectivity of art and science by exploring select historical objects and scientific manuscripts of medicinal botany and mathematics from Iran, Arab regions, and Europe. These subjects define her ancestral and cultural heritage and unify her work.
"In my hand-made botanical prints, I present medicinal plants in various compositions. The visual elements and stars in the series are from the Herbal, a 12th-century Andalusian botanical manuscript, and Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo's 17th-century treatise. Inspired by the manuscripts' original images, I digitally draw stars, and botanical and animal silhouettes, and then prepare stencils of them for silkscreen and monotype printing processes. Some of the prints have over fifty layers of printing combined with washes of ink or watercolor to impart the idea of tangled plants in a garden."
About the artist:
Pantea Karimi is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and educator based in San Jose, California. She worked and studied in Iran and the UK before settling in the US in 2005. Karimi's works have been exhibited in solo, group, and traveling exhibitions in Iran, Algeria, Germany, Croatia, Mexico, the UK, and the United States, including San Jose City Hall, San Jose Tech Interactive, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, New Bedford Art Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, Montefiore Einstein in NY, McMullen Museum of Art in Boston, and Rotch Library at MIT. Karimi's works are held in private and public collections at YouTube HQ, Stanford University, University of California San Francisco, and University of California Davis. KQED Arts & Culture published an article on Karimi's 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom work followed by a live interview on KQED Forum, aired on April 26, 2023
Karimi is a 2024 City of San Jose Creative Ambassador, a 2023 Kala Art Institute Honoree, and a 2019 Silicon Valley Artist Laureate. She is the recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant (2022), City of San Jose Arts and Cultural Exchange Grant (2019) and Artist Residencies at MASS MoCA (2022 and 2024), Santa Fe Art Institute (2024), Montalvo Art Center's Lucas Program (2024-2026), University of California San Francisco Library (2021-2022) and Kala Art Institute Fellowship (2017).
Karimi holds Master's Degrees in both Graphic Design and Fine Arts and is a member of the international discussion group Substantial Motion Research Network (SMRN), affiliated with Simon Fraser University in Canada.
Courtesy of the artist and Kala Art Institute