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SPIRALING SOLITUDE
Aryana Minai , 2022

"Everything:  the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies, the faithful catalogue of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books."
- Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings, trans. James E. Irby (New York: New Directions, 1962) 54.


HOLDING ONTO A MEMORY
HOLDING MEMORY
HANDLING MEMORY
MY HANDS HOLD
MEMORY ON HAND

- Aryana Minai, 2022



You are walking down a stair or maybe you are walking up, one thing you know is that the stair is not straight but spirals endlessly in a direction through light and darkness.  You take one step after another while your arms gracefully drift by your side as there is no rail to hold your balance against falling towards the abyss.  The one thing holding your focus as you go up or down is the core of light at the center of the spiral that extends itself towards everything and nothing.  With every step you are less certain if the light is digging through the ground or projecting itself through the sky.  You even ask yourself if it might be a reflection?  A left step, a right step, and you start to forget about falling towards the darkness and even the light itself disappears.  Your mind wanders as you remember something that happened a day ago, a year ago, a generation ago, maybe an eternity ago.  The distance becomes irrelevant because you have forgotten what step you’re on, or even if you are taking steps at all.  Then your left foot raises while your right foot stumbles and a jolt through your body sends awareness towards balance.  A misstep maybe, a mistake perhaps, all you know is that through the break of repetitive steps your perception reverses.  The light at the center extends toward the darkness and the darkness becomes the core of the spiral that holds everything together.
​
​

​Show Sponsor:
Lucky Bucket Brewing Co.
Photos Courtesy of Dan Schwalm
Aryana Minai Studio Visit in Los Angeles, CA:
Photos Courtesy of  Mike Nesbit
Aryana Minai Studio Visit in Little Italy:
Photos Courtesy of  Mike Nesbit
Compiled Video from Aryana Minai:
Video Courtesy of Aryana Minai
Photos Courtesy of Aryana Minai
Email conversation between Aryana Minai and Mike Nesbit regarding this exhibition:

About the Artist:
Aryana Minai (b. 1994, Los Angeles, CA) makes paper-based sculptures and wall works that are intimately linked to philosophies and histories of architecture, migration, labor, the body, and the handmade. Minai identifies paper as a material that links storytelling, tradition, and craft, centering her practice on the diasporic subject’s daily lived experiences as she draws from her personal archive of decontextualized Iranian-American content. The architectural quality of Minai’s works embody a lived survival instinct—to preserve historic space and inhabit safe spaces—as well as an interest in what salvaged and saved materials can teach us. Using bricks and stones from buildings that no longer exist, woodblocks used a generation ago to create textile patterns, parts of vernacular decorative architecture, Minai embosses into paper that she pulps from found materials in small batches in her studio. Minai envisions architecture as a living entity that continually sheds and acquires memories as bodies pass through its spaces.

Minai received a BFA from Art Center College of Design in 2016, an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2020, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
www.aryanaminai.com
© 2017-2025 Maple St. Construct
Website Design by Ross Miller
  • ABOUT
    • BOARD OF DIRECTORS
    • THE SPACE
  • EXHIBITIONS
    • SEASON 8 (2025) >
      • PICTURES OF NOTHING
    • SEASON 7 (2024) >
      • THE SILENCE OF LIGHT
      • SEASONS
      • HOME ON THE RANGE
      • DE STIJL TRANS AM
      • SITE WORK
      • FOR RICHER, FOR POORER
      • MATTER SHIFTING SHAPE
    • SEASON 6 (2023) >
      • OPEN STUDIO V
      • NEBRASKAFLAT
      • WORDS HAVE GONE TO SLEEP INSIDE...
      • EN SILENCIO
      • SHOW AND GO
      • OPEN STUDIO IV
      • POST FACADE
      • GANDZASAR AT HIGHLAND
    • SEASON 5 (2022) >
      • WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPEN
      • VENTURING MIDWEST
      • OPEN STUDIO III
      • BROKE EVEN WHEN I BET THE FIELD
      • HARMONY AND DISSONANCE
      • OPEN STUDIO II
      • THE FADE
      • SPIRALING SOLITUDE
      • IMPROVISE
      • OPEN STUDIO
    • SEASON 4 (2021) >
      • Automatic Composition
      • This Will Get Us Somewhere
      • CRUISE CONTROL
      • Off Alondra and Hickory
      • DIG
      • Unfamiliar Appearing
      • Floral Rodeo
      • Shiny Side Up
      • Expecting Snow
      • FORWARD
    • SEASON 3 (2020) >
      • EMPTY SPACES
      • Winter Saturdays are for Spring
      • A High Disregard
      • Between the Void
      • 12:38
      • Precarious as Obtained by Entreaty or Prayer
      • A Morning in Little Italy
      • Past Grounded in Nature
      • Silence and Intimacy
      • Highway Hypnosis
      • Between Nonchalant and Relaxed
      • The Fickle Crowd
      • High Peak Monocacy
      • 251,000 Trees
      • Textured Sound
      • The Room and The Landscape
      • VERNACULAR
      • MOVEMENTS
    • SEASON 2 (2019) >
      • FOUNDATION DRAWINGS
      • DANIEL IN OMAHA
      • SHED
      • Little Italy Abstracts
      • CHARRETTE
      • The Hand and The Arm
      • A Surfer's Time
      • Los Angeles Sunsets and Quiet Landscapes
      • Perspective BLUE
      • No Road Most Traveled
      • POST-NOVIS
      • Pairings
    • SEASON 1 (2017-2018) >
      • KATHY
      • Above The Silos
      • THE BLUES
      • To Be Pigeon Holed
      • The Fool's Journey
      • Wall Assembly
      • The Map and its Porcelain Goat
      • Loose Landing
      • Long Ago, Far Away
      • Victories Over The Sun & Campus Stories
      • Perspective Flood
      • Falling Vertical
      • Textured Blue
      • FLOOD
  • LECTURES
    • 2025
    • 2024
    • 2023
  • SUPPORT
  • PRESS
  • SHOP
    • MERCHANDISE
    • PUBLICATIONS
    • PICTURES OF NOTHING ARTWORKS
    • THE SILENCE OF LIGHT ARTWORKS
    • 2025 MSC Design Lecture Series Sponsorship
  • CONTACT