artists

Pantea Karimi

Pantea Karimi’s work is informed by how contemporary social and political issues are captured and delivered to the world through text and image. In her art she tackles the myriad ways in which mass media frames issues by employing certain representational tactics. In her scenes, narratives are not restricted by geographical boundaries or time constraints but rather offer a culmination of past and present occurrences. Her pieces include invented calligraphic forms that are derived from Persian scripts; all recognizable, but not legible. In some works, these illegible texts are accompanied by iconic media images, symbols and made-up characters. Sonia Mak, a Los Angeles based art historian says: “The signature characteristics of Pantea Karimi’s aesthetic are technical precision, meticulous composition, strategically employed colors, and intricate-often impossibly delicate-details.” Karimi’s intricate details and compositions owe much to her background as a graphic designer. Her early career was formed by studying Persian calligraphy, and the layout and content of early twentieth century Iranian published media, which were often saturated with the juxtaposition of western themes and Iranian subjects. Karimi’s recent body of work addresses the Iran’s 2009 “Green Revolution” whose images and video-clips were promptly uploaded and circulated via social-media outlets. Whether factual or fake, censored, or distorted, the “image” of this latter revolution and its subsequent events has inspired Karimi’s exploration into the world of communication technologies and in particular social networking applications.

Karimi earned her MFA in printmaking and painting from San Jose State University in 2009. She also holds a Diploma in printmaking from Hastings College of Arts and Technology in England and an MFA in graphic design from Art University in Tehran, Iran. Her works have been exhibited in various venues in Iran, England, and America, including the Triton Museum, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Jose and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Besides being a practicing artist, Karimi teaches art classes at the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View and for the Euphrat Museum at De Anza College in Cupertino. She lives and works in San Jose, California.