Telluride Arts HQ Gallery in Telluride, Colorado is excited to present The Body Electric: Luma Jasim.
The Body Electric is a series of exhibitions for 2021 which highlight figurative art and light art—asking its viewers to meditate on the idea of humanity, embodiment, and our unique light.
The Art Walk opening reception will be held on Thursday, October 7th, 5 - 8 pm at Telluride Arts HQ Gallery (135 W Pacific). The gallery is open most days from 12-6pm or by appointment.
Luma Jasim Artist Statement
The Body Electric is a multimedia work that includes mixed media painting using acrylic, ink, charcoal, tar, transferred images on canvas, and a stop-motion animation projected onto one painting. This project reconstructs memories, traumas, and thoughts on displacement, belonging, and strangeness, a journey of living bodies in exile. The memories made me wonder about the distance in time and place; I am so far from it, yet its presence was dominant in a way, which made me think about the duality of home and abroad. Those memories are the same for a large number of people today and throughout history, creating a collage of fragmented visions represented through imaginative figures, historical symbols from Mesopotamia, and everyday site images. A major concept is the relation with home, where someone was born and raised, the choices of leaving, and the consequences of staying.
The project examines the idea of displacement, immigration, the experience of refugees, and all the weight these things carry. Due to war, conflict, and violence, being forced to flee one's home country to a new foreign place, oftentimes to a new continent not chosen by the refugee, leaves one in a space between two contradictory realities. The past and history of one's given home; and the unknown present of fashioning a home in an alien place. Displacement and the urge to leave all that belongs to us, starting a new life again not only by changing physical place but also trying to fit into a different history and language. As immigrants, we carry with us history, and we strive to keep some values, but we also have to be part of the present and accept and adopt new values.
Bio
Luma Jasim is a multidisciplinary Iraqi-born artist based in Brooklyn, NY, and Boise, ID. Luma has lived through three wars, an economic blockade, the US invasion catastrophe, and later, her immigration to the US. Jasim left Iraq in 2006, three years after the invasion. First, she moved to Istanbul, Turkey, and immigrated to the United States two years later. Since then, Jasim's art deals with war, violence, and her immigration and acculturation experience, which rose from that. Luma's multi-media body of work explores the relationship between violence, politics, gender, and emotional memory. In her artwork, she uses the personal to address the political and activate the viewer's curiosity. Luma often reconstructs her memories, traumas, and thoughts on displacement, belonging, and strangeness in various mediums, including mixed media painting, performance, video, and animation. In 2013, she received her second BFA in Visual Arts from Boise State University, Boise, ID, and in 2017, she accomplished an MFA in Fine Arts with full scholarship from Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, NY. Jasim has completed many artist residencies and fellowships, including the MDOCS Storytellers' Institute fellowship in Skidmore College in Saratoga Spring, NY (2019), Yaddo Residency in Saratoga Spring, NY (2018) Surel's Place Residency in Boise, ID (2018), The MASS MoCA Residency in North Adams, MA (2017), and The AAF (The American Austrian Foundation)/ Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts, Summer Academy in Hohensalzburg Fortress, Austria (2017). In 2018 her work "Frozen Roots" was Shortlisted for The Tenth Passion For Freedom London Arts Festival, London, UK. Most recently, Luma received the Juror merit award for the 2020 Idaho Triennial, Boise Art Museum.
Luma's work has been shown nationally and internationally.
