Tala Madani (born 1981)
is an Iranian-born American artist, well-known for her contemporary paintings, drawings, and animations. She lives in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
, California.
Early life and education
Madani was born in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
, Iran in 1981.
From the age of seven, she studied calligraphy and painting. In 1994 she moved to Oregon. Madani graduated from
Oregon State University
Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering c ...
in
Corvallis, Oregon in 2004 with a
BA degree in political science and visual arts. She did an internship in Berlin in 2003 with the German Council for Foreign Affairs and worked with an expert on Iranian affairs. In 2006, she graduated from
Yale University School of Art
The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...
in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
with an
MFA degree in painting.
Work
Madani is known for her use of cartoonish and exaggerated sexual imageries in her paintings.
Her work often focuses on the relationship between the adult and child.
Many of her works contain images of men in traditionally childlike positions, playing with their anuses, bodily fluids, and penises. The paintings utilize satirical humor, and are very loose in their execution.
Madani works to capture the moment an idea emerges in sketchbooks and she translates this by using decisive brushwork and strong lines in her paintings,
and is a visual example of real world impulses that get repressed.
In 2008 Madani began incorporating animation into her work, as an attempt to bring the painting to action.
Madani's work was included in the 2017
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
held at the
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
in New York City.
Awards have included
Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation
The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate ...
(2013), Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting (2013), the De Volkskrant Art Award (2012),
Pinchuk Art Centre (2012), the Van den Berch van Heemstede Stichting Fellowship (2008), and the Kees Verwey Fellowship (2007).
In September 2022, the first North American survey of Madani's work opened at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles.
Madani's work is found in the public museum collections of
Hammer Museum,
Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art,
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
museum,
among others.
See also
*
List of Iranian women artists
This is a list of women artists who were born in Iran or whose artworks are closely associated with that country.
A
* Panteha Abareshi (born 1999), multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California
* Golnar Adili (born 1976), artist bas ...
References
External links
* Review by Andrew Maerkle, i
Art Asia Pacific 2007
* Review by Robert C. Morgan, i
Brooklyn Rail 2007
* Video
"I really laugh when I paint." An interview with Tala Madaniby
Louisiana Channel
Louisiana Channel is a non-profit web-TV channel based at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark.
By the end of the first year, 28 November 2013, Louisiana Channel had published 130 videos featuring international artists, film m ...
, 2013
* Archived 28 June 2014.
*Works of Tala Madani, i
Artsy.et
{{DEFAULTSORT:Madani, Tala
1981 births
Living people
21st-century Iranian women artists
Iranian women painters
American people of Iranian descent
People from Tehran
Oregon State University alumni
Artists from Los Angeles
Yale School of Art alumni
American artists of Iranian descent