Habibti’s Castle
Maryam Yousif & Nick Makanna

Exhibition Dates: Sunday, August 9th - August 16th, 2020

Habibti’s Castle or “My Love’s Castle (feminine)” marks the first collaborative exhibition by Bay Area artists Maryam Yousif & Nick Makanna, merging the disparate ceramic worlds of this married couple in the untraditional context of a San Francisco garden. Yousif’s time-traveling take on ancient Iraqi forms meets Makanna’s skeletal gothic-inspired architectural towers, with both artist’s works serving to push one another into a new realm of imaginary possibility.

Yousif’s latest works continue an exploration into a rich Iraqi heritage, replete with the expansive history of the area unmarred by colonialism and military intervention. Conical female figures draped in bright ruffled dresses, their arms stretching above to support a large plate, jug or smaller figure collide far flung references from big-eyed Sumerian votive worshipers that patrons placed within a temple’s hallowed walls, or the dresses worn by the artist’s mother and aunt in the 70s all lovingly made by the artist’s grandmother. Other works take the mysterious form of the handbag carried by winged gods in ancient Assyrian carvings, using the form as a framing device to carry glazed paintings of pastoral scenes, a lone girl holding a flower framed by distant palm trees. Bright colored glazes and hits of blocky Arabic text provide the works a graphic quality, not dissimilar to the album covers of Arabic pop-singers that inspire so much of the artist’s sensibilities.     

Flanking Yousif’s figurative works are Makanna’s towers or “Runes” as the artist has taken to calling them, which evoke stained glass windows, and dilapidated monuments–spindly forms composed almost entirely of long coils of clay, segmented and attached in structures that defy the typical weightiness of the ceramic medium. Sections are stacked atop one another, intricate patterns of spider webs, archways and victorian flourishes, repeated and layered back to back with small connecting pieces that create a disorienting visual reverberation. Saturated glazes and underglazes are sprayed over each other, or painted with a heavy hand, drips of potent color melting into the next, palettes ranging from a rusted industrial brown to a matte chartreuse with pops of brightness, all providing a sense of levity, hope and regrowth amongst these gnarled remnants.

By appointment only. Mask attire necessary. Email us for availability.

Accessibility: Plenty of parking in the neighborhood if not in the driveway. Exhibition is only presented in the backyard, no access and or entry point through the interior of the building. Entrance is through the side gate directly into the garden. There are no steps to enter.