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Laylah Ali: Drawings from the Typology
Series
Laylah Ali
Untitled, 2005
In Drawings from the Typology Series, critically acclaimed
artist
Laylah
Ali (b. 1968, Buffalo, NY) presents meticulously rendered and ornately
patterned black and white images of characters culled from an imaginary
anthropology. As an extension of her distinctive gouache paintings,
Ali's new works in ink and colored pencil engage traditions of
identification and classification based on observable physical traits.
Curated by Alex Baker, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts, which organized the traveling presentation,
Laylah Ali: Drawings from the Typology Series opened at the
Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts and traveled to the University of Iowa Museum
of Art before its presentation at UAMA from January 31 through March 23,
2008.
Deceptively whimsical, Laylah Ali's paintings and drawings offer
keenly suggestive analyses of power, oppression, and subjugation --
often
in ways that implicate gender and racial identity. While the
artist's earlier work (1999 to 2004) delved into the moral turpitude
and physical violence of group dynamics and power-plays, Ali has
recently shifted focus to the myriad ways in which identity becomes
manifest -- through clothing, hairstyle, skin color, physical prowess or
limitation.
Ali's figures ask that viewers supply their own stories in response
to questions of race, class, gender, and power they raise. The issue of
race has long had a presence in the artist's oeuvre, though it has
moved from allegories of race relations in America to an
all-encompassing investigation through outrageously hybridized
figures, presenting characteristics derived from both Western and
non-Western cultures. While ambiguous in reference to a particular
origin or circumstance, her work comes to bear on instances of ethnic
and sectarian identity -- and violence predicated on such affiliations -
throughout the world.
Laylah Ali has had solo exhibitions at 303 Gallery, New York; Gertrude
Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne, Australia; Contemporary Art Museum,
St. Louis, Missouri; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York;
Museum of Modern Art, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston;
and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, among others.
She has been featured in group exhibitions such as The Body, The
Ruin,
Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia; 2004 Whitney Biennial,
New York; Splat, Boom, Pow, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston,
Texas;
2003 Venice Biennale; and Freestyle, Studio Museum in Harlem,
New
York.
Ali earned a BA from Williams College and an MFA from Washington
University, St. Louis; she works and lives in Willamstown, MA.
Additional information about Laylah Ali and her art is
available at the PBS website
Laylah Ali is represented by
Visit our Exhibition History page for information on past exhibitions at UAMA. UAMA: (520) 621-7567 
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