“Come, let us split apart the domed ceiling of the celestial spheres, and let us lay the foundation of a new structure.”

— Hafez

Robert Ryman, Untitled, 1965

Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953

Maximilian Franz Josef Cornelius Wolf, Johann Palisa, The Milky Way, ca. 1900

In our regular feature Collection Rotation, a guest selects from SFMOMA’s collection works online. This fall artists with Bay Area ties have taken over the series. In addition to their rotations, we asked each artist to provide us with a set of influences for their work — a “constellation of their genius,” per poet Robert Duncan. Ala Ebtekar’s mother sketched the five senses of  Ala’s early influences as she remembers them:

Click to enlarge.

Ala Ebtekar is an American-based visual artist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ebtekar is known primarily for his work in painting, drawing, and installation that explores the juncture between history and myth, forging a multifaceted project that melds Persian mythology, science, philosophy, and pop culture.