LOS ANGELES, CA.- Depart Foundation presents Samsara, Kour Pour's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, curated by Nicola Ricciardi.

Samsara by Los Angeles-based Kour Pour includes new paintings and related installation works that continue the artist’s recent carpet painting series. In the first iteration of the series, historic examples of carpets were directly appropriated from auction and museum catalogues; in the new works the artist has created original compositions that juxtapose sets of imagery that are stripped from their own temporal context by the use of today’s technologies —Google Images, clip art CD-ROMS Photoshop—and then re-contextualized on canvas through months of painstaking labor—generating a scenario that brings to mind a “networked bazaar of history and futurity.”

Just as the Sanskrit word, Samsara, has slightly different meanings in different belief systems; Pour’s work is purposely open to interpretation depending on the cultural entry point of the viewer. By sourcing material from different locations, traditions and time periods, the large canvasses, with their warp and wefts, act as nets gathering information without an apparent hierarchy. These flat surfaces contain images of hunters and gatherers, religious icons and mystical creatures, merchants, lovers and warriors. Annexing both the past and the future into the present, the paintings on display bend and blend different temporal planes and enhance non-linear narratives, highlighting Pour’s interest in the cyclic life of the material world.

The exhibition is accompanied by a forthcoming publication, in collaboration with Nero Publishing and featuring an essay by Nicola Ricciardi.

Kour Pour (b. 1987) is a British born, part-Iranian artist. He graduated from Otis College of Art and Design and lives and works in Los Angeles. Pour’s first solo exhibition was presented at UNT/TLED Gallery, New York in 2014 and he was the youngest artist featured in the 2014 Artists to Watch exhibition in Miami. In October 2014, Pour's exhibition Ozymandias was presented at Ellis King, Dublin. His works have also been included in group exhibitions at Roberts & Tilton and Steve Turner Gallery in Los Angeles. Pour was featured in Forbes Magazine's 2015 30 Under 30: Art and Style list.