Thursday, September 19, 2024
2:30pm – 4:30pm
Liljestrand House
POSTPONED! NEW DATE TBD.
Afternoon Conversation featuring
Kamran Samimi
On Rocks and Hard Places:
Kamran Samimi in conversation with Tyler Cann
Kamran Samimi’s sculptural works are deeply attuned to his chosen materials of stone and wood. The Hawaiʻi-raised, Honolulu-based artist thinks of his work as a collaboration with natural forms, emphasizing, for example, the life of a particular stone and the process by which it becomes sculpture.
Join Kamran in conversation with Tyler Cann, senior curator of modern and contemporary art at the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA). Samimi and Cann will discuss how art can evoke the specificity of time, place, and identity while hinting at something that transcends them.
Bubbles and light refreshments will be served at the bar.All attendees will have the opportunity to enter to win one of two sculptures generously donated by Kamran.
Each sculpture is the result of a collaboration with the stone itself, as Kamran’s marks and interventions are informed by his conversations with the ancient material. Special care is taken to retain the quiet essence contained within it, as each is an entity which speaks of its journey though time— moments both turbulent and tranquil.
In photo on the left: Void- stone, marked 9″ x 7″ x 4″
In photo on the right: Windswept figure 19′ x 5″ x 3″
All proceeds support the preservation of Liljestrand House.
*Drawing winners must be present in order to receive prizes. Drawing will take place immediately following the talk.
Kamran Samimi grew up in rural Laupāhoehoe on Hawaiʻi Island to parents of Iranian and Norwegian ancestry. He has been exhibiting art since 2008, and has had solo exhibitions at The Third Line, Dubai, the Sharjah Art Museum in United Arab Emirates, the Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design.
His work is in the permanent collection of the Sharjah Art Foundation, the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, and the Hawai’i State Foundation of Culture and the Arts. Samimi was the recipient of the 2024 Artists of Hawai’i Best In Show Award and holds an BFA in Printmaking and an MFA in Print Media and Sculpture from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He has gallery representation by The Third Line in Dubai and re.riddle in San Francisco.
Tyler Cann is the Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Originally from Los Angeles, he has organized over 40 exhibitions and held curatorial positions in Aotearoa New Zealand and the United Kingdom in addition to the United States. Prior to joining HoMA in 2022, Cann served as the Acting Chief Curator of the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. Current projects include Kapulani Landgraf: ʻAuʻa and the upcoming Home of the Tigers: McKinley High and Modern Art (September 28, 2024 – January 12, 2025). Co-curated with Alejandra Rojas Silva, Home of the Tigers explores the outsized artistic impact of Honolulu’s McKinley High School through the work of seven artists who graduated in the mid-20th century and three teachers who inspired them.
