Can't deny it - Orkideh Torabi and Stacey Beach
July 6 - August 5
Reception: Friday, July 6, 6-8 pm.

Interface Gallery is pleased to present Can’t deny it, featuring work by Chicago-based, Orkideh Torabi and Bay Area-based Stacey Beach. Torabi uses painting to undermine patriarchal power dynamics in her native Iran, presenting male subjects in playful, cartoonish and emasculating ways. Set against vivid colors and decorative backgrounds influenced by Persian miniatures, the men in her paintings are often revealed as vulnerable or ridiculous, yet the portraits are also tender and humanizing.

Stacey Beach produces sewn, collaged textiles that are abstract and deal primarily with formal relationships. While the work is quite different from Torabi’s, there is a shared interest in exploring and subverting gender constructions as they are expressed through material and color.

In this exhibition, shapes and colors in Beach’s work often mirror decorative elements in Orkideh's, extending the decorative environments in which Orkideh situates her characters. Both artists work with textiles. Beach sewing together fabric fragments and Torabi applying fabric dye on cotton using a transfer process that generates rich, saturated surfaces.

The title for this exhibition comes from the title of one of Torabi’s paintings, which is a centerpiece of the show. In it, a muscle bound man with bright pink skin strikes a pose against a decorative background, not nearly as irresistible as he seems to think. The phrase “can’t deny it” also playfully refers to the sensitivities and perspectives so effectively captured in these artists’ work.

Please join us for a reception on Friday, July 6th from 6-8 pm.

Orkideh Torabi received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, and she received her MA and BA from The University of Art in Tehran. Torabi’s solo and two-person shows include Yes, Please & Thank You in Los Angeles, Western Exhibitions in Chicago, and Horton Gallery in New York City. Group shows include Andrew Rafacz Gallery and the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. She was selected for the 2017 Midwest issue of New American Paintings and has work in the Microsoft Art Collection in Redmond, WA. Torabi lives and works in Chicago. She is represented by Western Exhibitions, Chicago and Horton Gallery in Dallas.

Stacey Beach lives and works in Berkeley, CA. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts and has worked as a studio assistant to Takashi Murakami. Her work explores composition, form and process through the use of sewn collaged textiles.