Kour Pour: On The Silk Road

Kour Pour (born 1987) is a young British artist of part Iranian descent based in Los Angeles. He specialises in painting carpets. An exhibition of his paintings at the Untitled Gallery, New York, generated intense interest.
Pour’s canvases take months to prepare. Each is based on a particular rug or carpet that he has researched from exhibition and auction catalogues. The canvas is mounted on panel and he begins by priming it with several layers of gesso to represent the warp and weft of woven rugs. He uses a broomstick to apply these layers. He then silkscreens an image of the rug onto his prepared surface. Details are then meticulously painted in, using acrylics in a somewhat more vibrant palette than that used by the artisans in the rugs of the Silk Road merchants he typically copies. After months of this preparatory work, he then erases parts of the image with a circular sander. Finally he repaints these obliterated areas as much as possible to produce the finished work.