Kour Pour Explained

Kour Pour
Birth Place:Exeter, Devon, England
Education:Otis College of Art and Design
Occupation:Painter, printmaker

Kour Pour (born 1987) is a British-born American artist,[1] who is of British and Iranian-descent. His artwork is inspired by living between different cultures and he works primarily in painting and printmaking.[2] Pour is best known for a series of carpet paintings. He lives in Los Angeles.[3]

Early life and education

Kour Pour was born in 1987 in Exeter, Devon county, England.[4] His Iranian father moved from Iran to England at the age of 14; and his British mother was born in England. His father owned a small carpet shop in England, and Pour would spend time there as a child.[5] [6]

He also often travelled to Los Angeles to visit family members on his father’s side. He attended Santa Monica College, and would ultimately move there to attend Otis College of Art and Design (BFA, 2010).

Career

Living in Los Angeles, he was exposed to hip-hop and became interested in the idea of sampling as it is practiced in music production, and how he might apply similar principles in his artwork.[7]

In 2014, Pour had his first solo exhibition at New York City's Untitled gallery, which "drew a frenzy" and sold out.[8] [9]

Pour was featured on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2015 and in 2017.[10] [11]

Imagery

Pour's time in his father’s carpet shop and his interest in hip-hop are synthesized in an ongoing series of carpet paintings, a series which Pour began in his last year of school at Otis College of Art and Design.[12] Each of the first paintings in this series was based on a particular rug or carpet that the artist researched from exhibition and auction catalogues. Later paintings in this series utilize structures and images drawn from existing carpets, but incorporate the artist's own designs as well. Pour's own designs drawn inspiration from a mashup of sources, sampling imagery from a range of places, but all of the elements date pre-Victorian era.[13]

Pour's carpet paintings are well-known and highly desirable, and the artist intends to continue producing these works alongside other series. In recent years, he has produced a series of paintings utilizing traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques (specifically ukiyo-e) but at a much larger scale than the processes were traditionally applied to.[14] Another series of paintings employs paper pulp, which Pour began to work with due to his interest in origami, and the lesser-known paper craft form tsugigami. Pour began making his own paper, and mixing the paper pulp with various pigments; after some experimentation, he came around to the idea of creating a series of works using the pigmented paper pulp in lieu of paint, sculpting the pulp onto panels covered with linen. Both the woodblock paintings and the paper pulp paintings are based on Japanese Geological Survey maps, which Pour noticed for their similarities to abstract paintings from Europe and America.

Process

His paintings take months to develop. A canvas is mounted on panel and the artist begins by priming it with several layers of gesso to represent the warp and weft of woven rugs. He uses a broomstick to apply these layers. He then silkscreens an image of the rug onto his prepared surface. Details are then meticulously painted in, using acrylics in a somewhat more vibrant palette than that used by the artisans in the rugs of the Silk Road merchants he typically copies. After months of this preparatory work, he then erases parts of the image with a circular sander. Finally he repaints these obliterated areas as much as possible to produce the finished work.[15]

Notable exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Art market

An exhibition of his paintings at the Untitled Gallery (New York) in 2014 generated intense interest. All seven canvases, depicting Persian rugs and priced at $15,000 each, were snapped up by buyers.[26] In 2015, a painting by Pour sold at a Sotheby’s auction in Doha, Qatar for $162,500, well over the estimate of $70,000-$90,000.[27]

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Dambrot . Shana Nys . 2022-03-14 . Meet Polyglot Painter Kour Pour . 2022-09-11 . LA Weekly . en-US.
  2. Book: Gnyp, Marta . Kour Pour . Rizzoli International Publications . Alex Bacon (contributions), Shiva Balaghi (contributions), Masako Tanaka (contributions) . 2019 . 9788857240633.
  3. 25 Artists to Watch in 2014 . . Elisa Carmichael . Seth Carmichael . https://web.archive.org/web/20140109062231/http://www.complex.com/art-design/2014/01/artists-to-watch-2014/kour-pour . 9 January 2014 . live .
  4. Web site: Kour Pour. 2021-09-12. Art for Change. en.
  5. Web site: Brown . Emily . 2015-03-16 . Meet Kour Pour, The Young British Artist Who Specializes in Carpet Paintings . 2022-09-11 . Culture Trip.
  6. News: Woodcock . Victoria . 2022-07-08 . 'In London, Mercury was never in retrograde' . . 2022-09-11.
  7. Web site: Kour Pour GNYP Art Advisory . 2018-06-29 . www.martagnyp.com.
  8. Web site: Slenske . Michael . 2014-12-31 . Kour Pour's First Solo Exhibition Opens . 2022-09-11 . Architectural Digest . Condé Nast . en-US.
  9. News: Kazakina . Katya . February 6, 2014 . Art Flippers Chase Fresh Stars as Murillo's Doodles Soar . Bloomberg .
  10. https://web.archive.org/web/20150106184336/http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkl45ehmdj/kour-pour-27/ Forbes.com
  11. Web site: 30 Under 30 Europe 2017: The Arts . 2018-06-29 . Forbes . en.
  12. Web site: Kour Pour GNYP Art Advisory. www.martagnyp.com. 2018-06-28.
  13. News: Zhong. Fan. 2014-06-14. Kour Pour, The British-Iranian artist finds fresh inspiration in the ancient.. en. W Magazine. 2018-06-28.
  14. News: Kour Pour: In Conversation With Robert Summers. SFAQ / NYAQ / LXAQ. 2018-06-28. en-US.
  15. Web site: Kour Pour . flatsurface.com.
  16. Web site: Desmarais . Charles . March 18, 2019 . Kour Pour's beguilingly perverse artistic method at Ever Gold . 2022-09-11 . Datebook San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guide . en-US.
  17. Web site: 2019-04-15 . Artist Kour Pour Returns to Tokyo with New Perspective . 2022-09-11 . Tokyo Weekender . en-US.
  18. Web site: Kour Pour - Wild Garden . 2022-09-11 . SHRINE . en-US.
  19. News: Kour Pour - Onnagata, Feuer/Mesler . en-US . Aujourd'hui . 2018-04-25.
  20. Web site: Glitch: Art and Technology Exhibitions. Wednesday, February 12, 2020 to Wednesday, March 11, 2020. The American University in Cairo. en-EN. 2020-06-10.
  21. News: Mossavar-Nameh, A Dastan Project, Art Dubai 2018.
  22. Web site: TOKYO METROPOLITAN TEIEN ART MUSEUM｜Decoration never dies, anyway｜Saturday, November 18 – Sunday, February 25, 2018 . 2018-04-26 . TOKYO METROPOLITAN TEIEN ART MUSEUM｜Decoration never dies, anyway . ja-JP.
  23. Web site: Horror Vacui, or The Annihilation of Space MISAKO & ROSEN . 2018-04-26 . www.misakoandrosen.jp.
  24. News: Kazuo Shiraga & Kour Pour / Earthquakes And The Mid Winter Burning Sun / January 10 – March 18 . en-US . Ever Gold [Projects] . 2018-04-26.
  25. Web site: DIDONNA FROM ABOVE . 2018-04-26 . www.didonna.com.
  26. News: Kazakina. Katya. Art-Flipping Speculators Boost the Young Artist Market. BusinessWeek. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140218194421/http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-13/art-flipping-speculators-boost-the-young-artist-market. 18 February 2014.
  27. News: Kour Pour Scores at Sotheby's Int'l Gulf Sale. 2015-04-24. Art Market Monitor. 2018-07-26. en-US.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kour Pour".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.