ILY2 is thrilled to present new works by Vancouver, British Columbia-based artist Sol Hashemi at NADA Miami Beach, November 30 through December 3, 2022. The presentation will include sculpture, photography, and editioned objects by Hashemi. In his recent exhibition, After petal fall spray, Hashemi’s photobook is a sculpture is a publication is a collaboration with the living organisms that are yeast, hops, barley, and a raft of foraged herbs to produce medicinal and psychotropic (mood-altering) beverages in custom shrink-sleeved beverage cans.

“My work operates within the realm of surreal technics rather than that of communication,” Hashemi says. “It acknowledges the reciprocal power that objects and images have to shape living beings.” He connects this to a biosemiotic perspective which “suggests that all beings alter their environment in some way and other beings respond to these modifications. Living through signs, in a world structured by semiosis across species, it becomes difficult to distinguish boundaries between beings and things. When the distinction between the self and environment collapses, what is a nature photographer to do?”

Important to the work is the notion of information not as something discrete, not devoid of relation to subject or being, but only existing in a living being making sense of a problematic (i.e. situation, environment) with which it is confronted. Thus, Hashemi is interested in the ways the work has the potential to be perceived through the full range of senses and not simply that of sight via what Charles Spence calls the cross-modal correspondence of the senses. Each of the various works in the presentation has the ability to affect, inspire, or contaminate one another.

For Hashemi, photographic process—-from the foraging of images to time in the darkroom—is not unrelated to the foraging and chemical processes involved in brewing. In new photographs for this presentation, including those on the shrink-sleeves of the cans, photographic process morphs into self-reflexive photographs of process.

Sol Hashemi (b. 1987) is an artist whose practice encompasses foraging, experimental product photography, stoneworking, cooking, organizing, conceptual floral design, writing, curating, brewing, and the internet. His exhibitions include those at Henry Art Gallery (Seattle), James Harris Gallery (Seattle), Annarumma Gallery (Naples), Sculpture Center (Long Island City, NY), Ditch Projects (Springfield, OR), Portland Art Museum, and Kunstverein München. Hashemi received his MFA from the University of British Columbia (2021) and BFA from the University of Washington (2009). He was a co-founder of Veronica (Seattle) and is a recipient of the Kayla Skinner Award from the Seattle Art Museum. His publication, Excerpt from Baker’s Dozen, was recently presented by Artspeak (Vancouver, B.C.). Hashemi will present an upcoming project at Western Front (Vancouver, B.C) in May 2023.