MANCHESTER .- Castlefield Gallery has just opened the first major UK solo exhibition by Omid Asadi. The exhibition will feature new large scale sculptural work by Asadi exploring loss, memory and belonging. Resonance and Remnants (2023) will be built in situ in the gallery space using reclaimed bricks from demolished houses, found objects and dandelion seeds. These broken but resilient found materials will be set in contrast with the delicate seeds and their connotations of childhood hopes and dreams. This work is informed by Asadi’s experiences of revisiting the locations of destroyed family homes, lost to either war or so-called development. Despite this personal inspiration behind the work, it is hoped that it will resonate with the diverse range of memories, histories and knowledge that visitors bring to the exhibition.

Contrast runs through both the materials and the thinking in Asadi’s work. Throughout this exhibition, gentle and harsh materials will be brought together. Like fragments of the past that linger in our minds, solid, stable and enduring objects mix with ephemeral matter, resembling the fragile nature of recollection. Asadi hopes this exhibition will be ‘… a testament to the power of human resilience, creativity, and the everlasting longing to reclaim a sense of belonging even when the physical spaces have disappeared’ Asadi (2023).

Omid Asadi (b.1979, Iran) currently lives and works in Manchester, UK. Asadi has an MA Fine Art (2018) and a BA (Hons) Fine Art from Manchester Metropolitan University (2017).

Selected residencies include: Kulturföreningen, Svenshögen Station, Sweden (2022); SODAS2123 Vilnius, Lithuania (2022); Conversations Series III, Venture Arts, Manchester UK (2022); PROFORMA Pavilion, Corte Super Nova, Venice, Italy (2019).
Solo exhibitions include: Last Drop of Oil, Svenshögen Station, Sweden (2022); Autopsy Of A Home, esea contempoary, Manchester, UK (2020-21).

Selected group exhibitions include: Narratives, The Lowry, Salford (2023); Intersections, Paradise Works, Manchester, UK (2022); Proforma Pavilion, Pase Platform, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2022); Agent Of Change, John Ruskin Art Prize at Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK (2019); PROFORMA Pavilion, at Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); Sources, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK (2019); State of the Arts, Selfridges, Manchester, UK (2019); The Ground Beneath Your Feet, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK (2018); Warrington Contemporary Art Festival, WARRINGTON MUSEUM & ART GALLERY, Warrington, UK (2018); The Manchester Contemporary, represented by Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK (2017); In Visible Lines, Scaffold Gallery, Manchester, UK (2017) Air Open, Air Gallery, Altrincham, UK (2017). Asadi took part in Creative Lives a collaboration between artists, academics and other stakeholders, University of Sheffield (2022) and SUSTAIN: Artist Digital Exchange, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester & Aarhus Billedkunstcenter, DK, (2021 – 2022).

Asadi has work in the Public Collection of Siam Discovery shopping mall, Bangkok, Thailand.

Castlefield Gallery
Omid Asadi
October 15th, 2023 - January 21st, 2024