October 3 – November 14, 2026
Artists Reception: Saturday, October 3, 4–6PM
SFArtsED gallery, 1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco.
Seyed Alavi: Layla / Majnun
Layla / Majnun
The exhibition Layla and Majnun explores what happens when the boundaries between things we ordinarily perceive as separate become porous?
At the scale of everyday life, the world appears to be made of distinct things with
clear edges. Yet our perception of those boundaries is relative. As we look more
closely, at the scale of atoms and particles, the hard edges we take for granted
become less definite, while relationships and interactions become increasingly
important. This exhibition begins with a similar curiosity: where does one thing
end and another begin?
Layla brings together the visual languages of Persian miniature painting and
Persian rug design. Figures, patterns, colors, and motifs appear to belong to
different worlds, yet gradually become inseparable. A figure can be read as a
pattern; a pattern can become part of a figure. The work asks whether difference
necessarily means separation.
Majnun approaches this question through physical transformation. The works are
recomposed from fragments of figurative tapestry in which figures are formed from
calligraphic strokes. The seams, threads, and interruptions remain visible, making
separation and reconstruction part of the work itself. Writing becomes gesture,
gesture becomes figure, and pieces fall into new relations.
The titles come from Nizami Ganjavi’s 12th-century poem Layla and Majnun.
Separated from Layla, Majnun’s longing gradually carries him beyond the desire
for the beloved and toward the discovery of love itself: not simply an emotion, but
that which brings things into relationship and holds them together. In that
discovery, the distinction between lover and beloved begins to dissolve.
Together, the two series invite us to look again at the boundaries we take for
granted. Perhaps some of the boundaries that seem most definite are simply
boundaries created by the distance from which we look.
Seyed Alavi received a Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. His work is often engaged with the poetics of language and space, and with their capacity to shape perception and reality.
Alavi has created site-specific installations for The New Museum of Contemporary Art and Franklin Furnace in New York; The University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach; the Museum of Santa Cruz County; the de Saisset Museum; the University Art Museum at Sonoma State University; the University Art Museum at California State University, San Bernardino; and Capp Street Project in San Francisco.
His public art projects include Fountain Head in Walnut Creek, California; Tree of Life in Seattle; Room for Hope and Flying Carpet in Sacramento; Tale of Time in Kochi, Japan; Seed of Knowledge in Saint Paul; Nature of Life and A Sense of Unity in San Jose; Signs of the Time in Emeryville; Where Is Fairfield in Fairfield; Words by Roads in Oakland; Selected Words in San Rafael; Forgotten Language for the City of Palo Alto; and Speaking Stones, Golden Gateway, and What Do You Think? in San Francisco.
Alavi has received grants and fellowships from the NEA/US-Japan Creative Artists’ Fellowship, the California Arts Council, the Western States Arts Federation, Art Matters, Inc., the Pollock- Krasner Foundation, New Langton Arts, the City of Oakland Creative Artists Fellowship, the Creative Work Fund, and the LEF Foundation.
He has taught classes and workshops at the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, the University of California, Davis, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He has also been a visiting artist at Kyoto Seika University in Kyoto, Japan, and the California Institute of the Arts.
His artist residencies include the University of Washington in Seattle, Capp Street Project in San Francisco, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the Blue Mountain Artists Residency in New York, and the Djerassi Foundation in Woodside, California.
