Aleah Koury
Aleah Koury, painter
EDUCATION
1980 University of Southern Illinois at Edwardsville, Master of Fine Arts, Printmaking
Received the Ford Foundation Fellowship there in 1978
1975 University of Missouri at Columbia, Bachelor of Arts, Ceramics
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008 Robert Allen Fine Art, Sausalito, CA
2006, 2003 Salisbury Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA
2005, 2003 Nan Miller Gallery, Rochester, NY
2004, 2002 Lisa Coscino Gallery, CA
1999, 1997 Images Fine Art, Yountville, CA
1993 Chroma Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1988 Nan Miller Gallery, Rochester, NY
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS (since 1985)
2008, 2007,2003,2000,1989 Art Expo, New York
1993, 1992, 1991, 1987, 1986 Philadelphia Art Show, PA
1990, 1989 Los Angeles Art Expo, CA
1991 Featured Artist, Friends of Strong Art Show & Sale, Rochester, NY
1987 Creative Group Galleries, San Francisco, CA
Gallery 30, San Mateo, CA
1986 Anne Goodman, Los Angeles, CA
Koury’s works are held in numerous major corporate collections nationwide, including Eastman Kodak, Kaiser Permanente, MCI, Metropolitan Life, Exxon Chemicals, Clorox, USAir, Morgan Stanley, Grubb and Ellis, Nordstrom and Xerox, as well as in Japan, Hong Kong, France and Germany. He currently lives in California.
Aleah Koury comes from a diverse artistic background, with a Bachelor Degree in Ceramics, and a Master’s in Printmaking. This has encouraged him to be bold in experimenting with new materials and imagery. At various times he has incorporated collage, printing, found materials and a variety of different types of paint media in his work.
A gifted colourist, over the past decade Koury has increasingly been drawn to pastel as the purest expression of the colourist’s art. By the late 1980’s Koury had made a national reputation with a series of abstracted landscapes called “Skyscapes”. In these works the gesture of the artist and the full brilliance of colour are revealed in the unclouded intensity of the raw, pastel pigment.
Koury has further stretched the expressive possibilities of pastel by combining it with enamel and latex paints, gold, bronze and silver leafing, oil pastel and pencil to create works of spectacular richness and texture. The “Gardens” and “Floral Still Life” series draw inspiration from the 19th century French master Odilon Redon as well as Koury’s own California garden and particularly the exotic orchids, which he cultivates.
Koury has also turned to the subject of Koi, producing works in which the brilliant colours of the fish appear as dramatic visual counterpoints against the soft colour-field abstraction of the water.
Koury has also continued to work in a completely abstract idiom and his series of abstracts works: “Organic Geometry” and “Way of Things” mark a new and typically bold departure from his earlier work.
Aleah’s most recent body of work include: “Oh Happy Days” based around exquisite hand-made papers from Tibet. These papers are sewn onto backing paper & combined with copper plate & other materials. Aleah’s experiments with burning, rusting, oxidized & patinated finishes is carried even further in these works, resulting in pieces of unparalleled delicacy & beauty.
In all these works it is the uninhibited sensuality of colour that is the true subject, whether found in the beauty of the natural world or the poetry of the imagination.
Aleah Koury was born in Bellingham, Washington, and spent his early childhood in California before moving to the Midwest. In 1975, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia and in 1980 a Master’s from the University of Southern Illinois at Edwardsville. Since that time Koury has lived in and around San Francisco and the Bay area, recently moving to a small ranch on the Central Coast area of California.