An Anthem For Uncertain Times by Amir H. Fallah

For the past two years, Amir H. Fallah has created intricate and autobiographical paintings by mining the archives of universities, libraries, museums, and public collections. The resulting paintings perform as active documents of his lived experience. Turning to a new phase of his practice, Fallah turns to his archive to produce work that exists solely in the digital realm.

About Amir H. Fallah

Amir H. Fallah creates paintings, sculptures, and installations that utilize personal history as an entry point to discuss race, representation, the body, and the memories of cultures and countries left behind.

He 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. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Selected 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 2009, the artist was chosen to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial. In 2015, Fallah received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. In 2019, Fallah’s painting Calling On The Past received the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago. In 2020, Fallah was awarded the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship and the Artadia grant. In addition, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, accompanied by a catalogue, and a year-long installation at the ICA San Jose.

His work is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami; Deste Foundation For Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; Xiao Museum Of Contemporary Art, Rizhao, China; McEvoy Foundation For The Arts, San Francisco; Nerman Museum, Kansas City; SMART Museum of Art at the University of Chicago; Davis Museum, Massachusetts; The Microsoft Collection, Washington; Plattsburg State Art Museum, NY; Cerritos College Public Art Collection, CA; Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture, CA; and Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE.

Learn More about Amir H. Fallah

In the Press: Amir H. Fallah

An Anthem for Uncertain Times

“An Anthem for Uncertain Times” is the latest creation from Amir H. Fallah on MakersPlace. His newest works function as archeological surveys, where new works cannibalize the old and uncover new perspectives within his practice.

While the stories that surround his subjects are deeply personal and are told through the intimate possessions they hold most dear, Fallah’s work addresses generational immigrant experiences of movement, trauma, and celebration. The new digital images are logical extensions of Fallah’s longstanding painting practice but exist independently in both material and concept.

By appropriating elements of children’s book illustrations, advertising, art history and popular culture into his compositions, Fallah interrogates systems of representation embedded in the history of Western art. Through this process, Fallah employs nuanced and emotive narratives that evoke an inquiry about identity, the immigrant experience, and the history of portraiture.

The images are flattened, layered, and stacked, calling attention to the psychological space of borders, identities, and histories while utilizing his personal history as an entry point to discuss race, representation, and the memories of cultures and countries left behind.