In All Experience Is an Arch, Fallah continues an exploration of portraiture using material sourced from an estate sale—trophies, diaries, photos, clothes, and various trinkets—amassed by members of a family over decades. Fallah’s paintings are not likenesses (faces are covered) but, rather, carefully researched and imagined representations of individuals and their personal narratives based on the objects they saved and as reconstructed by the artist.

All Experience Is an Arch combines Fallah’s portraits and selected objects in the gallery space. The gallery walls are painted a version of the grey and dark charcoal polka dot fabric found throughout the family home. On several small shelves yellow enamel-dipped objects display as artifacts. As these details come together, the individual family members blur, shared history replaces personal narratives, and a more complex story emerges.

Amir H. Fallah has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Exhibitions have included shows at The Nerman Museum, Overland Park, KS; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; The Sharjah Biennial 2009, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Volta New York, New York, NY; LA Louver, San Francisco, CA; 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, CA; among others. He is a 2015 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant. Born in Tehran and raised in Virginia, Fallah earned his MFA from UCLA, and his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.