 (b. 1984) lives and works in Bergen. She is educated at Bergen National Academy of the Arts. She has exhibited at venues such as Market Art Fair, Stockholm (2023), KODE art museum, Bergen (2019, 2022), Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2020), Stavanger Kunsthall, Stavanger (2019), Hordaland Art Centre, Bergen (2018), Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2016), Futura, Prague (2016), NADA, New York (2015), Fotogalleriet, Oslo (2012) and Gallery 1857, Oslo (2011) among others. Solo exhibitions include MELK, Oslo (2020, 2023), Kunstgarasjen, Bergen (2022), Tag Team Studio, Bergen (2017), Syntax project, Lisboa (2017), Kunsthall Oslo (2015) and Entrée, Bergen (2013). Her works are in several private and public collections such as Preus museum, KODE art museum, Equinor, KORO (Art in public places) and Karolinska University Hospital in Solna (Stockholm). In 2020 she received the Springbrett Prize in Bergen, and in 2017 the monograph Azar Alsharif was published by Kunsthall Oslo and Torpedo publishers. She also works as a teacher and art critic.

Azar Alsharif

Azar Alsharif (b. 1984, Iran) lives and works in Bergen, Norway. She was educated at Bergen Academy of Arts and Design (2011). Solo exhibitions include; Kunstagarasjen (2022); ENTERPRISE REMIX, MELK galleri (2020); The Conclusion, Tag Team Studio, Bergen (2017); Grains Natural Habitat Remix,Of Golden Sand, Kunsthall Oslo (2015); False Is More Than Real, Trykkeriet, Bergen (15); All these shimmering things. They fade so quick, Galerie SPZ, Prague (2013); The distant things seem close (…) the close remote (…), ENTRÉE, Bergen (2013); Before You Can See You Gotta Learn How To read, Galleri Fisk, Bergen (2011); Knowledge Is Faithful, Rom 8, Bergen (2012) and 7 Sonnets On Grace, Hovefestivalen, Arendal (2012). 
Her works have also been shown in group exhibitions at Kunsthall Stavanger (2014, 2019), The 11th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2016), Gallery Futura, Prague (2016), Syntax, Lisbon (2017), Hordaland Kunstsenter (2018), Bergen and KODE, Bergen (2019).

In the shadow of a thing lies the idea of the thing. This is often an imagination of what could be, something that stretches beyond the thing, beyond the idea even, into spectacle, promise, possibility. This speaks to a condition of projection based on our own subjectivity, whereby behind a thing is a vibrant landscape teeming with potential.

This promise of something more touches upon a deeply human tendency to desire, which bleeds through the collages of Azar Alsharif’s solo exhibition at MELK Galleri. Alsharif extracts, manipulates and abstracts images from magazines, newspapers and old comics, placing them in electric, fervorous painted landscapes of longing.

In humorously employing the language of visual culture - specifically formative aesthetics from her childhood - Alsharif’s work builds from a “textual logic”, with coatings of paint forming a backdrop, spilling over the edges, and symbols composed onto the surface like quotations. Images act like text, and text like images. With the ephemeral nature of newspapers and magazines glossily preserved on top of thick lashings of paint, a loose catalogue of symbols emerges, like strange images from dreams. Her approach is intuitive and playful, light and honest.

It is about more than just the objects themselves, but rather their carefully constructed scenographies of desire in which they sit. Expanding beyond their physical form or surface-level representation, these objects cultivate memories, emotions, a philosophy, a way of being - the idea that they could make everything make sense. In SPEEDY WINDOWS, these images land in new, painted landscapes that reconfigure, obscure and question their intended purpose or context. Things are given new relationships and no clear meanings.

Like the meandering pathway that strolls through Old Story, these works change our course of perception and our pace of reading images. Through repetition, these images teeter on the edge of meaninglessness while brimming with meaning, like a riddle with no answer. Everything is a cipher. They lie latent ready for our subjective desires to choreograph them. They poke, nudge and prod into the fibres of whatever happens to surround us, revealing our simple wish to relate and to locate meaning.

Alsharif’s work takes on an archival quality, but without recording details of context, references or data. Instead we encounter an elastic archive of desire, of chance, of symbols that appear and repeat, sparking a choir of questions to every new pair of eyes.

Text by Ruby Eleftheriotis

For Market Art Fair 2023 MELK is presenting a solo exhibition with Bergen-based artist Azar Alsharif.

Market Art Fair

We are happy to invite you to the opening of Azar Alsharif's second solo show at MELK titled SPEEDY WINDOWS.

SPEEDY WINDOWS

 (b. 1984, Iran) lives and works in Bergen, Norway. She was educated at Bergen Academy of Arts and Design (‘11). Solo exhibitions include; 

All these shimmering things. They fade so quick.

The distant things seem close (…) the close remote (…)

Before You Can See You Gotta Learn How To read

, Hovefestivalen, Arendal (12). Her works have also been shown at Kunsthall Stavanger (14, 19), The 11th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (16), Gallery Futura, Prague (16), Syntax, Lisbon (17), Hordaland Kunstsenter (18), Bergen and KODE, Bergen (19).

The images found on the walls are inspired by text and landscape, which are results of play and experimentation with scanned textiles, painting, monoprints, symbols and an abstract alphabet. Whereas the sculpture series DNA # I-III consist of framed collages and assemblages with dual sides, placed in stands draped in textile. The sculptures appear to be mobile beings that carry the idea of place as something mental, made up of memories and dreams.

Alsharif’s work is often based on found images and juxtapositions of different elements and symbols that form a new whole via simple abstractions or interventions. Her work touches upon topics such as subjective perception, time, and value.

“I think of it as an opportunity to express myself lyrically in a visual way; an open approach to questions of authenticity and the subconscious. My personal understanding of collage is as a comprehensive artistic method; including reduction, abstraction and generally all forms of change of the already existent. In my work, I try to make the original material more elastic and change the pace of the reading of an image.”

In her first exhibition at MELK titled “The Conclusion” Alsharif presents two bodies of work comprising overlapping elements of collage, painting and textile. The works in the exhibition spring from Alsharif’s rudimentary methods and processes where the collage often acts as both an abstract and figurative starting point.

The Conclusion

For many years, the exploration of collage and the working methods connected to it have played a major role in Alsharif’s work. In recent years, painting has become a larger part of it. Through this, she attempts to move deeper into the fiber of the clippings in her studio. Her practice has always been based around found images and text, and the search for some form of textual logic in images; abstract signs, words and lines. Finding that images act like text, and text like images. Alsharif extracts, manipulates and abstracts images from magazines, newspapers and old comics, placing them in electric, fervorous painted landscapes. She employs the language of visual culture – often inspired by formative aesthetics from her childhood. Her projects often involve looking closer at what it takes for images to change their character and tempo. Her work takes on an archival quality: an elastic archive of desire, of chance, of symbols that appear and repeat.