[Essay] Safekeeping Patterns in The Vault

ArtsWestchester CEO Emerita Janet Langsam reflects on Rana Amirtahmasebi’s “Terra: Continuum,” the current grantee of The Janet Langsam Vault Project, on view at ArtsWestchester through August 2. 

Patterns that repeat in mathematical sequence are a lifelong fascination for artist Rana Amirtahmasebi and it is not an unusual obsession considering that she was born in Iran, where buildings, and particularly masks, are decorated in repetitive patterns that reflect the influence of Persian Islamic tradition.

While ancient Persian architects and engineers used a tenfold method to create repetitive patterns, Rana now creates these complex patterns on the computer, taking them to a new finite level.

In her installation in the bank vault at ArtsWestchester, Rana transforms the space with repetitive images on the walls, floor, and even on the surfaces of pottery, which she hand-built into elegant vessels. The method she uses to transfer these patterns to multiple surfaces is silk-screening. What is most interesting about the work is that the artist has utilized the elements of printmaking and clay making to construct an environment—not a collection of objects, but a cohesive unified spatial concept. Says Rana, who studied Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT: “This spatial awareness informs my installations, where pattern becomes an organizing system that structures both visual rhythm and bodily experience.’’

This site-specific work was created in response to a Call to Artists inviting projects that consider what is valuable enough to be treasured in a vault today. In this case, the artist uses an ancient art form to be cheered, explored and re-imagined as a symbol of harmony in a divided world.

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_{Photos (top to bottom): Rana Amirtahmasebi’s “Terra: Continuum” (photo credits 1 & 2: Maksim Akelin, photo credit 3: Susan Nagib)}