Dalar Alahverdi: Almost Real
July 18 @ 12:00 pm - August 23 @ 5:00 pm
Free
Almost Real explores how personal and collective traumas are often abstracted, minimized, or erased. History tends to reduce people to numbers— counted, filed, and forgotten — while the weight of loss, displacement, and survival remains unrecorded. Through figuration and abstraction, Dalar Alahverdi questions how reality is shaped or dismissed by collective perception. Is it enough that something happened, or must it also be seen and acknowledged to exist in the world’s memory? Or perhaps reality isn’t just what happened, but what’s allowed to be known.
This series of interactive mixed media works invites viewers to engage actively with these questions. By shifting perspective or using blacklight to reveal invisible ink, they uncover what lies beneath the surface—narratives otherwise unseen. In this act of discovery, witnessing becomes personal.
Almost Real asks us to look again—to notice what’s overlooked and recognize stories hovering at the edge of visibility, waiting to be seen, felt, and remembered.
Bio:
Dalar Alahverdi is a mixed media artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work is deeply interactive, inviting viewers to engage directly with each piece to uncover hidden layers of meaning. Rooted in themes of human rights, collective trauma, and immigration, her art offers a powerful narrative on the complexities of personal and shared histories. Alahverdi holds an MA in Art Education from California State University, Long Beach, an MFA from Yerevan State Academy of Arts in Armenia, and a BFA from the University of Tehran in Iran. She actively exhibits her work both in the United States and internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, Armenia International Art Exposition, and The Drawing Room, San Francisco.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 19, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: August 1, 5 – 9 pm
Image: Dalar Alahverdi, Carried and Carrying, Mixed Media, 24″ x 30″ Photo courtesy of the artist
