July 2009
Iranian born Afruz Amighi has been chosen as the winner of the first Jameel Prize for her work, 1001 Pages (2008).
The Jameel Prize is a new international art prize for contemporary artists and designers inspired by Islamic traditions of craft and design. Amighi’s winning work is informed by a broad range of Islamic sources, including carpet design, miniature painting and architectural decoration. Aged 34, Afruz Amighi was born in Tehran and lives and works in New York.
1001 Pages (2008) is from a series of shadow pieces in which she uses light and shadow to create complex and engaging designs whose precise location can elude the viewer. She employs a stencil burner to hand-cut the design from a thin, porous sheet of plastic–a material used in the construction of refugee tents. The work is suspended, and an overhead projector illuminates the piece, which casts a shadow of the intricate pattern against a wall.
Mark Jones, chair of the judging panel and Director of the V&A says, “Afruz Amighi has created something new, something that is skilful but which transcends that skill. The work is both striking and subtle, as well as being beautiful. Its use of projected light and shadow loosens the viewer’s focus on the created object, marking a passage from the material to the immaterial.”
An exhibition of work by the winner and eight other short-listed artists and designers opens 8 July thru 13 September.
The Jameel Prize aims to raise awareness of the thriving interaction between contemporary practice and the rich artistic heritage of Islam, and to contribute to a broader debate about Islamic culture. The Prize will be awarded every two years.
The winner was decided by a panel of judges chaired by Mark Jones, Director of the V&A. The judges were: Jananne Al-Ani, artist; Khaled Azzam, CEO, The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, London; Ali Yussef Khadra, Founder, Canvas Group, Dubai; Charles Merewether, art historian, writer and curator; Venetia Porter, curator, Middle Eastern Department, British Museum and Parviz Tanavoli, sculptor.
The eight other short-listed artists and designers are Hamra Abbas, Reza Abedini, Sevan Biçakçi, Hassan Hajjaj, Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Susan Hefuna, Seher Shah and Camille Zakharia.
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