"Better a Cruel Truth Than a Comfortable Delusion" at Denny Dimin Gallery features a new body of work by Amir H. Fallah. The Los Angeles-based artist is known for his vibrant portraiture series, in which the subjects are obscured by fabric and visually revealed by the objects with which they surround themselves. The paintings on view for the first time in New York were imagined as a how-to manual for Fallah's son, featuring icons, imagery, and references to the culture that forms us—from advertising and pop culture to the books we read as children. Each painting started from a text, whether a lyric from a song or line from poetry or film. In them, Fallah addresses issues like racism, xenophobia, climate change, immigration, and political division.