“inside/outside & other oxymorons” is a new show curated by Deeba Haider for the Inside/Outside Gallery at Levantine Cultural Center, June 20-July 31, 2009. The exhibtion has been extended through August 14, 2009.  See full press release.

See below for bios and art work.

“The global village is increasingly internalized within us.” – Pico Iyer

“Culture is not static…. We are fluid; we are human; we are experience.  And within that experience we are transformed by our contact with each other.” – Richard Rodriguez


Artist Sama AlshaibiSAMA ALSHAIBI

Sama Alshaibi, born in Basra, Iraq in 1973, to a Palestinian mother and an Iraqi father is a photography and mixed-media artist.  In 1985, her family immigrated to the U.S. where she completed her B.A. in Photography at Columbia College in Chicago and received an M.F.A in Photography and Media Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

Born into a family affected by war, displacement and exile from two homelands, her mother’s family fled Palestine for Iraq in 1948 and then later her father and mother and their respective families left Iraq one by one over a 23 year period, much of Alshaibi’s work focuses on themes of restlessness, diaspora, hybrid identity, exile and displacement and the subtle negotiations and shifts between personal and family history and expectations. 

Her experiences with war and frequent migration in her young life played a critical role in the formation of her individual and national identity and also in the creation of her art.  She mourns a home(land) she never visited as a child and experienced only through the stories of her elders.  Adding to this complexity is her own hybrid identity – half Palestinian, half Iraqi and naturalized American.  She is an Arab woman with an American accent with a fiercely adventurous and free spirit.

"Inta Omri" by Sama AlshaibiA frequent theme in her art, as seen in the fractured images of Wadi Rum, is an exploration between the body, the (disputed) land, and shifting political realities.  On a more personal level, her photographic work from the series entitled “Zaman: I remember” are a poetic recollection of her family’s migration from country to country in search of a new home after fleeing from the ravages of the Iran/Iraq war.  Her images have a restless quality to them, full of longing and nostalgia. They move from personal memory to the collective cultural memory.  According to Alshaibi, [my] “work is a vessel for aspects of the diaspora’s collected memories and narratives of loss, but they also produce a dialogue located in the present.”

The raw appeal of her work comes from the emotional vulnerability and honesty from which her photography and video art are born. Her art sneaks the viewer a glimpse into her own internal dialogue, struggles, and emotions as she attempts to portray multiple realities, not from the perspective of either/or, but from the in-between, explaining and connecting all sides like a middle child.

Since 1999, Alshaibi’s photography and video installations have been exhibited throughout the U.S. and internationally including exhibitions in South Africa, Ireland, China, Jordan, Guatemala and Mexico.  More recently, her work has been selected to be part of the prestigious Paris Photo 2009 Exhibition, in Paris, France.  Alshaibi is currently based in Tucson, Arizona and is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Arizona.

Sama Alshaibi Recent SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009 Sama Alshaibi, Hoffmaster Gallery at Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, September
2006 My Apartheid Vacation, Zero Station (The Project Room), Portland, ME
2005 Women, War, and Peace; Feminist Interventions in a Time of Conflict (in conjunction with Women’s History Month Symposium), St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN
2004 Where Do the Birds Fly After the Last Sky? El Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española, Antigua, Guatemala
Where Do the Birds Fly After the Last Sky? La Fabrica Arte Contemporaneo, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Zaman: I Remember, La Fabrica Arte Contemporaneo, Guatemala City, Guatemala

"Wadi Rum"

Recent 2-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2009 Motherhood and Revolution, Sama Alshaib and Beth Krensky, Cal Arts, Valencia, CA (January)
2008 We Make The Road By Walking, Sama Alshaibi & Beth Krensky, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts Space, Tucson, AZ, April (sponsored by University of Arizona's Conversations Across Religious Traditions)
Enfoco Presents: Sama Alshaibi and Myra Greene, Umbrella Arts Gallery, New York City, NY, March
2007 We Make The Road By Walking, Sama Alshaibi & Beth Krensky, Mizel Museum, Denver, CO, October
2006 Sama Alshaibi & Rozalinda Borcila, University of Stellenbosch Art Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa, July
2005 Unveiling: Sama Alshaibi and Joel Seah, The University of Southern Maine Gallery
Martyrs, Saints & Liars, Synapse Gallery, Benton Harbor, MI (with Yana Payusova )

Screenings and Performances
2009 The Bride Wears Orange, 17 Days Video Art Exhibition, Western Michigan University, fall
Where The Birds Fly, MidEastCut (International festival for alternative film and video)
Copenhagen/Denmark & Helsinki/Finland
All I Want For Christmas, 1st Video Art Festival,All Art Now Foundation, Damascus, Syria, January
2008 All I Want For Christmas, Jordan Short Film Festival, Amman, Jordan (Nov 16-20)
All I Want For Christmas and Goodbye to the Weapon, Happy Days, Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2008, Greece (Nov 13-24)
All I Want For Christmas, Palestinian Film Week, Al-Balad Theater, Amman , Jordan (Nov 2-11)
All I Want For Christmas, DOKUFEST 2008, Prizren, Kosovo, August 6th
A Day of Collaborative Performance (performance with the 6+ collective), Bronx Museum, NYC, NY, SATURDAY, MAY 17, 2008, 12:00 to 6:00 pm
All I Want For Christmas, SPE Multicultural Caucus Video Festival, Denver, CO (March 15) curated by Carola Dreidemie
All I Want For Christmas, CinemaEast Film Festival, NY, NY, November (Nov 10-15th)


"Journey to Them" by Sama Alshaibi

Artist Vahé BerberianVAHÉ BERBERIAN

Vahé Berberian was born in 1955 in Beirut, Lebanon to an Armenian family.  In his late teens, he traveled throughout Europe as part of UNESCO’s international theatre program.  Upon returning to Lebanon, Berberian studied art and worked as a graphic artist.  Due to the civil war in Lebanon, he eventually left once again.  In 1976, he settled in Los Angeles, where he earned his degree in Journalism and worked as a journalist until the early 1990’s.

Greatly influenced by his parents’ love of art and literature, he first studied painting under the tutelage of his mother then later with Paul Giragossian.  A renaissance man, Berberian is not only a prolific painter, he is also a successful novelist, playwright, actor, director and comedian.  His one-man shows are repeatedly sold out internationally.

"In Red"The deportation of his parents from Turkey, the war in Beirut, the European counter-culture which he became a part of in his teens, the city of Los Angeles and his own hybrid identity have undoubtedly been rich fodder for his work.  He paints his own reality.  His deceptively spare paintings and much of his written work focuses on creation without boundaries, a common culture where meaning and understanding is fluid and stripped to its most basic.

Berberian has participated in more than 30 individual and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and the Middle East.  Berberian’s artwork has been very popular with private collectors including Paris fashion designer, Sonia Rykel, Paris publishers, Alain and Raymonde Nave and architect, Frank Israel among others. Berberian’s works have also been featured in numerous Hollywood blockbuster films and Emmy-winning television series.

Vahé Berberian recent SOLO EXHIBITIONS
•    2008 FOUR MONTHS IN HEAVEN - Ambrogi Castanier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2007 MILAGROS - Casitas Studios, Los Angeles, CA
•    2006 NURSING NOTES - Gallery Saint Germain, Los Angeles, CA
•    2003 IN SANITY - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2000 WET PAINT -Hamazkayin, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
•    2000 WET PAINT - CABC, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
•    2000 SEN-SU-AL-I-TY - Thomas Lavin, West Hollywood, CA
•    1999 LOST & FOUND - BGH Gallery, Bergamont Station, Santa Monica, CA

Recent GROUP EXHIBITIONS
•    2008 GRACIAS A LA VIDA, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeels, CA
•    2007 PRESENT ART XIV - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2007 ASF – Fundraising show with three Artists, Los Angeles, CA
•    2007 OUT OF CONTEXT – Falk Tree Gallery, Pasadena, CA
•    2006 PRESENT ART XIII - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2005 PRESENT ART XII - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2005 GALLERY SAINT GERMAIN PREMIER - Los Angeles, CA. Presented by U.C.L.A., The Salamander Fund and Gallery Saint Germain
•    2004 PRESENT ART XI - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2004 GALLERY SAINT GERMAIN PREMIER - Los Angeles, CA
•    2004 ARRIVAL - Articultural Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2004 VIIISIONS - Kerckhoff Gallery, UCLA, CA
•    2003 ART IN THE VAULT CHRISTMAS SHOW - Altadena Gallery, Altadena, CA
•    2003 PRESENT ART X - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2003 KEN DUNIPACE 2ND ANNUAL BENEFIT AND ART SHOW - Broadway Bldg., Hollywood, CA
•    2003 FROM ARMENIA TO ARARAT - Forest Lawn Museum, Los Angeles, CA
•    2002 PRESENT ART IX - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2002 PROJECTION UNKNOWN - SOHO Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
•    2002 ARVEST 2002 - Pacific Design Center, CA
•    2001 MODERN ICON - Glendale Central Library, Glendale, CA
•    2001 PRESENT ART VIII - Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
 

Adnan ChararaADNAN CHARARA

Born in Lebanon in 1962, Adnan Charara grew up moving between Lebanon and Sierra Leone in West Africa.  At the age of 19, he moved to the U.S. for his university education, eventually receiving his B.F.A in Architectural Design from the Massachusetts College of Arts in Boston.  He continued his education at Boston University working towards a Master’s degree in Urban Planning.  While he worked briefly as a regional planner for the State of Massachusetts, the pull to create art was too strong and he eventually left that field.  While many would consider Charara a painter, etcher, print-maker and sculptor, he prefers to call himself a visual poet and philosopher.

"Ironman""Composer"Charara’s colorful, attractive and whimsical works are deceptively full of commentary.  With movement as a constant in his life, much of his work focuses on physical and emotional migration, the merging of cultures, assimilation, the search for new identity and the accumulation of knowledge through life’s journeys.  His whimsical style and lyrical lines represents his desire to create a cross-cultural visual language.

The initial idea for the ‘Envelope’ series was “Return to sender” referring to the repatriation of freed slaves in the United States to Africa, particularly to Sierra Leone where Charara grew up.  He covers used envelops with cryptographic drawings. Much like with his sculptures of found objects, he takes discarded items and imbues them with value.  He later expanded the theme to incorporate the immigrant experience.  The envelops become metaphors for immigrants who travel long distances to new locations and the hopes and dreams that accompany them.  In these collaged pieces he offers the viewer a mapping of the immigrant’s experiences through drawings of flowers, figures, buildings and other images.  He also expresses the immigrants’ struggle to remain connected to their original families and cultures, while simultaneously carrying weight of their ancestry, and attempting to forge connections with the new land.  Throughout his art, Charara explores what is gained and lost through migration. 

In his Osmosis series, the whimsical but poignant cartoon-like heads with stereotypical features are filled with information and experiences that one would acquire moving through life and encountering the world.  These works represent the complexity and the multi-faceted nature of the individual.  Never feeling like he fit in as a child, and often finding that he spoke the wrong language or dialect, Charara is keenly aware of the struggle to find a place of acceptance.  This theme, along with anxiety, fear, resilience, adaptability, growth and the search for identity are all elements inherent to the human experience in this globalized world and they manifest themselves in his work.

Charara’s work can be found in many prominent collections including those at the Whistler House Museum of Arts in Lowell, MA, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society Museum in Providence RI; Detroit Institute of Art in Detroit, MI, Boston Public Library, Boston, MA and the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington DC.  He is also the first living artist to be given a one-man show at the Arab American National Museum.

This will be his first exhibition in Los Angeles.  Adnan Charara currently resides in Dearborn, Michigan.

Adnan Charara Select SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008 Letters Home, Art Space of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center , May 4 – July 19, Kohler, WI
2008 Osmosis , Northville Art House, May 2 – May 25 , Northville, MI
2007 Juxtaposed, Arab American National Museum, March-May 2007, Dearborn, MI
2003 Monotypes, Galerie Camille, Detroit, MI
1997, Brush of History, Gallery, Lowell, MA
1995 Visual Metaphors, Lowell Gallery, MA
1992 Recent Drawings & Etchings, Whistler House Museum of Arts, Lowell, MA
Selected GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2008 Printer’s Trifecta: Three Print Portfolios , February 29 – March 28 , Pendeleton Center for the Arts , Pendleton , OR
2007 WHY , 17 November – 26 January , U Michigan School of Art & Design , Detroit, MI
2007 Susan Maasch Gallery, Portland ME
2006 Technology and the culture of Fear, April 2006. Madison, Wisconsin
2005 Reinterpreting the Middle East: Beyond the Historical stereotype, The Corcoran College of Art & design, Washington, DC
2005 Journeys and Distances, Padzieski Art Gallery, Dearborn, MI
2005 Historical Stereotyping, Sission Gallery, Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn, MI
2004 Ashmore Gallery, Miami Beach, FL
2004 Works on Paper, Armory, NYC, NY. Boss Fine Arts,
2003 New England Print Fairs, Boston, Galerie Camille,
2003 Diversity in Harmony, Alfred Berkowitz Gallery, University of Michigan, Dearborn, MI
2002 Woods Gallery, Huntington Woods, Michigan,
2001 Works on Paper, Armory, NYC, NY. Boss Fine Arts,
2000 New England Print Fairs, Boston, Galerie Camille,
2000 Works on Paper, Armory, NYC, NY. Boss Fine Arts,
2000 The Michigan Modernism Exposition, Southfield, MI
1999 Art Space II, Birmingham, MI
1999 Water, Arnold Klein Gallery, Royal Oak, MI
1996 Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, MA
1995 Anisworth Gallery, Boston, MA