San Francisco is often repulsive to those who enjoy it, maybe even more so than other love/hate objects, such as Los Angeles or children. White people with dreadlocks may have been invented here, for example — and we know some very nice freaks in this category. Thus, we’re not surprised to find that Iranian-American painter and installation artist Amir H. Fallah plans to mock us (or it, if you’re dissociative) in
“Spaced Case (Bong Rips, Magical Potions, Mystical Flora, and Avatars).” Using a fizz-candy palette, trompe l’oeil–ish collage techniques, and emotional confusion, Fallah constructs large images expressing a push-pull relationship with “all things relating to drug culture, the occult, New Age, and so on.” We like his use of weird borderlines, which usually ripple along the edges of the canvas, but then suddenly meander off and get lost, leaving one side open. He also enjoys flowers that look like they’re exploding and Santa Fe–style pottery; no dreadlocks that we know of.
An opening reception for “Spaced Case” starts at 4 p.m.
Jan. 9-Feb. 13, 2010
