Magazine's founder to show exhibit at Redux

Whatever plans you may have for Friday night, be sure to include a stop at Redux Contemporary Art Center to see Iranian-born/Los Angeles-based artist Amir H. Fallah. Fallah's exhibit is called "Post Stagecraft."

Fallah explores an exciting aesthetic employing a number of different mediums including painting, photography, sculpture and site-specific installation. He is simultaneously the founder and creative director of the international contemporary art and culture magazine, Beautiful/Decay.

"For Redux, Fallah will showcase new work featuring an update to his well-known, illustrious fort/terrariums," explains Seth Curcio of Redux.

"Fallah will deconstruct his fort structure, leaving a large and open 7-foot-by-14-foot pedestal platform in the center of the gallery, supporting a myriad of self-referential objects," Curcio explains. "These immersive installations, recently presented at the Nathan Larramendy Gallery, lie at the core of Fallah's artistic production. Childhood memories, found objects and invasive sculptural constructions submit the spectator to a spontaneous, playful yet somber universe. Each sculpture is built from household knick-knacks, flower pots and seemingly random chosen objects which unfold a private boyhood landscape referencing a time past and lost."

"Fallah's intuitive approach mixed with his use of ready made objects link his work to the Surrealists objet trouve," continues Curcio. "But in Fallah's work today we meet a different scavenger. One that collects and recycles the notion of remembrance and cultural heritage. He seeks a new poetry of memory, one that can retrace and encompass our multi-complex society of today and yesterday, both personal and universal. This postmodern approach causes his sculptural items to literally fall off the pedestal and unite as one large installation, rather than a collection of individual objects,"

Fallah will lead an informal gallery talk during the opening reception 6-9 p.m. Friday. The talk should start about 6 p.m. This exhibition in supported in part by the Art Institute of Charleston, and will be on display at Redux until Oct. 19.

For more information, call 722-0697 or visit www.amirhfallah.com, www.beautifuldecay.com or www.reduxstudios.org.

'Coastal Inspirations'

The Charleston Artist Guild Gallery will present "Coastal Inspirations," featuring works by South Carolina artist Alicia Leeke, with an opening reception 5-8 p.m. Friday.

Leeke's love of the coast dates back to early childhood, where her family vacations were spent exploring the woods, dunes and tides of the coast.

She offers her personal interpretations of Charleston and transforms familiar scenes into her own modern-day masterpieces. She refers to these as "Fabaism," a term she coined for a new era of art.

"This new body of work focuses on the impact color and abstraction has on landscape painting," she explains.

Complementing each painting is a robust combination of dry brush painting techniques to create texture. She manipulates acrylics to capture the thick rich texture of oils and mixes a palette full of rich reds, vibrant oranges, shocking blues and sharp white accents. Her gentle distortions of linear perspective are a fundamental elements to the overall design of her creations and are a necessary ingredient in the composition of her pieces.

"They create such a positive visual response that many viewers want to step inside each painting," says Leeke.

Leeke has been called a contemporary master and says her creativity is inspired by the French salon painters and how they captured history, social conscience and architecture by painting the people and environments surrounding them.

The gallery, 6 North Atlantic Wharf, off of East Bay Street and across from a city parking garage, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

Contact Leeke directly at 803-429-5456 or 888-429-5456, via e-mail at leekeka@hotmail.com, or by visiting www.alicialeeke.com.

Pamela Bledsoe

COCO VIVO Fine Art and Design will be showcasing a new collection of original paintings by Charleston artist Pamela Bledsoe with a reception 5-8 p.m. Friday at 25 Broad St.

Her fall collection is inspired by nature, focusing on wide gamut of colors, sunlight and the energy and magic of life.

"The artist's beauty, Southern charm, and vivacious personality flow through her florals and landscapes," says Danny Laran, COCO VIVO's gallery director.

A true love of nature is clearly evident in this Edgefield native's work. Educated at the University of South Carolina, Bledsoe has had a love affair with the Carolinas and the Lowcountry for many years. She moved to the Charleston area in 1995, and credits the move with renewing her passion for painting.

Laran says the demand for Bledsoe's work has been tremendous, with collectors across America and Europe often acquiring multiple pieces. She is an award winning artist who has hosted several successful solo shows. One of her collector's described her work by saying, "I feel like I am looking at music on canvas, and it's very happy music."

Possessing a strong belief that one should always give back, Bledsoe contributes original art to such organizations as the American Heart Association, Brookgreen Gardens and the Ronald McDonald House. In her own words, "Every painting I do is a spiritual and emotional process. The greatest compliment I can hear is that someone feels my painting."

Friday's reception is part of the First Fridays on Broad Art Walk series.

For more information, call 720-4027.