NADA Miami 2022

Merging references to his Iranian-American heritage with nods to Middle-Eastern art history and Western portraiture, Amir H. Fallah creates paintings, murals, sculptures, and installations that explore systems of representation embedded in the history of Western art.

The artist’s ongoing series of socio-historical grid paintings look to archival images to reflect on the way that traditions and beliefs are passed down. Adopting elements of Persian miniature painting, elaborate borders meander across the compositions, dividing the canvas to create a non-hierarchical, non-illusionistic picture plane. Fallah’s paintings often employ a lexicon of symbols that amalgamate personal narratives with parables. Serving as a diary of lessons, warnings, and ideals, the paintings investigate how cultural values are passed between generations. Personal at their core, Fallah’s works reside in the liminal space of being othered, utilizing personal history as an entry point to discuss race, representation, and the memories of cultures and countries left behind.

Amir H. Fallah (b. 1979, Tehran, Iran; Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received his BFA in Fine Art & Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA in painting at the University of California, Los Angeles. Select solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson; South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings SD; Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland OR; San Diego ICA; and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland KS. In addition, the artist exhibited a year-long installation at the ICA San Jose. In 2009, Fallah was invited to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial and he received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2015. Additional grants and awards include the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago, the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship, and the Artadia grant.

Fallah is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Greece; McEvoy Foundation For The Arts, San Francisco; Nerman Museum, Kansas City; Birmingham Museum of Art, AL; and SMART Museum of Art at the University of Chicago; among numerous others. The Fallacy of Borders, Fallah’s first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles, will open at the Fowler Museum in January 2023, followed by his third solo exhibition at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles in February 2023.