Areez Katki was born in Mumbai, India in 1989. He came to Aotearoa New Zealand as a child and grew up in East Auckland.
His multidisciplinary practice explores his genetic heritage and landscape through embroidery, tapestry, weaving, beading, painting, printmaking and sculpture. He is the recipient of the 2024 Berlin Residency awarded by Creative New Zealand.
Tim Melville is proud to present an exhibition of 13 embroidered artworks which have been created over cloth remnants collected during a collaborative research process with the artist’s grandfather’s tailor, ‘M’, in Tardeo, Mumbai.
The ‘Vazhghān | Vocabulary’ series continues Katki’s ongoing enquiry around queer affects / emotional responses through the use of lost and partially-recovered material drawn from the personal, the social and the literary.
The artist asks us to sit with these stories as they spill beyond an individual lifespan and, further, to listen to forebears as we navigate the contemporary world.
In ‘Vazhghān | Vocabulary’ Katki employs acts of translation and co-authorship as methods for his rich storytelling.
They are, he says, “abstracted fabulations, blending worlds of childhood memory with mythic ruptures in time, and invoked by a sensual phrasing encountered during readings of Forough Farrokhzad’s poetry.”
Katki describes his new works as “positing questions around hybrid solidarities, delanguaging, and aesthetic affinities held by queer bodies” as well as “an attempt to strengthen my understanding of Farsi, the language my late-grandmother Thrity communicated in.”
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view
Areez Katki
Ātash (Exceptionalist Tendencies)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Ātash (Exceptionalist Tendencies)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Khāneh-ye Matruk (Excursions)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
770mm H x 475mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Khāneh-ye Matruk (Excursions)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
770mm H x 475mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Nashq-e Penhan (Ligature between tongues)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Nashq-e Penhan (Ligature between tongues)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Bazgasht (Homebound)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Bazgasht (Homebound)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Viraneh (Tantrum)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Viraneh (Tantrum)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
775mm H x 525mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view
Areez Katki
Eshq-e Mazāji (Earthspell)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
720mm H x 525mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Eshq-e Mazāji (Earthspell)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
720mm H x 525mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Bazm (Somewhere, a feast)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
575mm H x 770mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Bazm (Somewhere, a feast)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
575mm H x 770mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view
Areez Katki
Eshq-e Haqiqi (Genuflexion)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
725mm H x 575mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Eshq-e Haqiqi (Genuflexion)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
725mm H x 575mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Picchad Sakht (Affective Erethism)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
525mm H x 725mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Chang (Scordatura)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
525mm H x 725mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Chang (Scordatura)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
525mm H x 725mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view
Areez Katki
Gūl (Nightprose)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
870mm H x 625mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Gūl (Nightprose)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
870mm H x 625mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view
Areez Katki
Shab o Havas (Nightswim)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
870mm H x 625mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Shab o Havas (Nightswim)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
870mm H x 625mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Jām-e Omid (Opensource)
2024
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
870mm H x 625mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Jām-e Omid (Opensource)
2024 (detail)
cotton embroidery on remnant cloth
870mm H x 625mm W (frame)
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view
Areez Katki
Vazhghān | Vocabulary | واژگان
2024
Installation view