Seeking a Way Out
Omid Shekari

Building 305, North & South Galleries
On View: May 10 & 11, 2024
11 am – 5 pm
Artist Walkthroughs:
Friday, May 10, 2024 | 2 pm
Saturday, May 11, 2024 | 2pm

Free to attend; no RSVP necessary

Centrum is thrilled to announce an installation, Seeking a Way Out, by visual artist Omid Shekari as part of its new In the Making residency program. Please join us May 10th or 11th to view the work. On Saturday May 11^th only, Shekari will have a site-specific installation in Battery Kinzie, the large battery down by Point Wilson Lighthouse (Discover Pass needed). The artist will host a walkthrough of the installations at 2pm both days, meeting in Building 305 (first white building to your left after driving straight through the 4-way stop, just beyond The Guardhouse).

While in residency at Centrum, Shekari will create several large-scale drawings and photos in dialogue with the historic construction of the Fort Worden Artillery Battery. This site is one example of the development of a military power in the wake of the colonization of the indigenous land in the area. The artworks on paper and fabric will explore the notion of body in relation to institution, history, and geography. These new works will be on view in the galleries at Building 305 and on May 11^th down at Battery Kinzie.

Inside the gallery, Shekari will display artworks comprised of mainly large and small drawings and paintings. This exhibition will be a selection of works that have been made in the past 7 years.

Omid Shekari is a visual artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He employs various approaches and methods of artmaking to explore his visual language within 2D and 3D spaces. His objects are attempts to understand and give forms to our complex social relations, specifically the relationship between repressed and repressor that has existed in our society and has been normalized under capitalism.

His artworks have been exhibited at the Sculpture Center in Cleveland, Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba House and The Drawing Center in NYC; Texas A&M International University, Laredo, TX; Ohio State University (Urban Art Center), Akron Art Museum, Oberlin College (Baron Gallery) in Ohio; Marginal Utility Gallery, Philadelphia; Greenfield Community College, MA; Fleisher Art Memorial, PAFA Museum, Woodmere Art Museum, Gallery Joe, Philadelphia; Pelham Art Center, NY; and Azad Art Gallery in Tehran. Shekari received his BFA from Soore University in Tehran and his MFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Shekari is currently an art faculty at the University of Pittsburgh.