Pantea Karimi is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Jose, California. She worked and studied in Iran and the UK before settling in the U.S. in 2005. Karimi’s art explores themes of science, identity politics, and female agency, reflecting on her cultural heritage, family history, and her journey as an Iranian woman and two-time immigrant. Her practice spans installation, animation, drawing, print, video, and objects, and her works have been shown in Iran, Algeria, Germany, Croatia, Mexico, the UK, and the United States. Karimi is a 2024 City of San Jose Creative Ambassador, a 2023 Kala Art Institute Honoree, and a 2019 Silicon Valley Artist Laureate. She is the recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant (2022), City of San Jose Arts and Cultural Exchange Grant (2019) and Artist Residencies at MASS MoCA (2022 and 2024), Santa Fe Art Institute (2024), Montalvo Art Center’s Lucas Artist Program (2024-2026), University of California San Francisco Library (2021-2022) and Kala Art Institute Fellowship (2017). KQED Arts & Culture published an article on Karimi’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom work, followed by a live interview on KQED Forum, aired on April 26, 2023.

I Will Rise in Slow Accession, 2024, wall installation with pixel floor plan, handmade bench, and water fountain sound, 8.6’ (H) × 10’ (W) × 8’ (D). Exhibition view at Palo Alto Art Center, CA, Sep–Dec 2024. Funded by the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation.

Project Description

At the Xenoform Labs Residency, Pantea Karimi will develop Beyond the Frame, an exploratory stop-motion animation that extends her ongoing project I Will Rise in Slow Accession (2024–). In this work, female figures from the classical Persian paintings are revised and reimagined as powerful, autonomous action figures with dramatically billowing hair. Created digitally, each figure is assigned a distinct role, from balancing natural elements to performing gestures of authority. During the residency, using the laser-cut action figures and water-based media, Karimi will create the animation and incorporate the figures into a small-scale installation with sound and light in collaboration with Scott Kildall.