Art Toronto 2024

24 - 27 October 2024
  • ​​At Booth A13, Zaal Art Gallery features a group presentation of works by Sirak Melkonian (1931-2024), Parviz Tanavoli (b. 1937), Farah Ossouli (b. 1953), Mohammad Piryaee (b. 1985), Yousha Bashir (b. 1989), and Mahsa Merci (b. 1990).  This marks the gallery's second presence at the fair. Art Toronto will be open to public viewing at The Metro Toronto Convention Center from the 24th to the 27th of October, 2024.
  • Sirak Melkonian (1930 - 2024) was a self-taught Iranian-Armenian artist and a painter of abstract landscapes who resided in Toronto,...

    Sirak Melkonian (1930 - 2024) was a self-taught Iranian-Armenian artist and a painter of abstract landscapes who resided in Toronto, Canada. At the age of fifteen, he participated in the group painting exhibition of the Armenian Cultural Association called "Mshakuyt" and then, in 1950, he attended the annual exhibition of the Iran-USSR Society, Tehran.

     

    Melkonian worked closely with Marco Grigorian and got to know the art nouveau movement through the magazines and newspapers that Marco sent from Italy. In his early figurative paintings, Melkonian, used social issues, people's life, and folk traditions in an expressionistic format as the basis of his works. In the course of his activity, the tendency towards abstraction became more colorful in his works, and the line became the main element. Over a long period, the landscape became the main subject of his work. Creating regular networks of lines in the background with gray, black, brown, green, and shell colors creates an abstract space, evoking Melkonian's perception of nature.

  • Parviz Tanavoli was born in Tehran in 1937. Upon graduating from the Brera Academy of Milan in 1959, he taught...
    Parviz Tanavoli was born in Tehran in 1937. Upon graduating from the Brera Academy of Milan in 1959, he taught sculpting at the Tehran College of Decorative Arts, and from 1961 - 1963 he thought at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He then returned to Iran and assumed the head of sculpting department at the University of Tehran, a position he held for 18 years until 1979, when he retired from his teaching duties.
    Since 1989 he has lived and worked both in Tehran and Vancouver, Canada. His latest solo exhibition was in 2019 at the West Vancouver Art Museum entitled "Oh Nightingale". Prior to that, he had another solo exhibition in 2017 at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art based on his Lions works and Lion collection.
  • About the Film
    Parviz Tanavoli is Iran's greatest living sculptor. As a guardian of ancient traditions and innovator of new forms of artistic expression, Tanavoli's contribution to the modern art movement of the Middle East is without equal. He is also the most important internationally recognized modern sculptor to ever call Canada home. "Parviz Tanavoli: Poetry in Bronze" tells the remarkable story of this esteemed artist's fascinating journey of creation that has spanned three continents and more than half a century.
    The documentry features exclusive interviews with Tanavoli and leading figures in the international art world. Together they illuminate the emergence and rise of this extraordinary artist who continues creating artistic masterpieces to this day.
  • Yousha Bashir (b. 1989) is an Iranian post-digital artist currently active in his hometown of Tehran. He studied Visual Arts...

    Yousha Bashir (b. 1989) is an Iranian post-digital artist currently active in his hometown of Tehran. He studied Visual Arts at Farhangian University (2011). Bashir works across media to create paintings, sculptures, and installation pieces.

    Yousha Bashir is a dynamic artist whose work has undergone significant changes in style and output. His landscape series (Inner Landscapes, Outer Landscapes, Ultimate Landscapes, The Infinite Continuum) and his self-portraits are relational studies of form with the frame (the viewers' perception) and the space surrounding the frame. He thus challenges the painting’s solid framework by exploring the relationship between the digital realm and the physicality of painting. His vibrant and luminous imagery question the definition of the creative space and the creative loci in the digital age and computer graphics. The self and how it is separated from the real world is one of the central explorations throughout his works. With the loss of image clarity in the process of a digital translation, he arrives at frames that open to a new two-dimensional world defined by restrictions and opportunities each possesses.

    Bashir has held six solo exhibitions, including his latest, "The Infinite Continuum" (Parallel Circuit, October-November 2021), and participated in more than 30 exhibitions, including at the Frieze Los Angeles (2022) as well as Art Dubai (2020 and 2021) with Dastan's Basement.

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  • Mahsa Merci (b. 1990 Tehran, Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Canada. She obtained her BA in Graphic Design...
    Mahsa Merci (b. 1990 Tehran, Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Canada. She obtained her BA in Graphic Design from Tehran University of Art (2009), her MA in Painting from the Azad University of Tehran (2014), and her MFA from the University of Manitoba in Canada (2019).
    Mahsa Merci works across various media – painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, installation, and video – "reflect on marginal identities. In her landscapes, still lives, and portraits, she goes beyond the "Norm," as one of her untitled paintings reads, to bring forth direct sensual and tactile experience. The grotesque ("X Is Y," "Be Careful, Everything Is Dangerous Here," "Visa Versa," "The Frozen Womb," "The Grudge"), the obscene ("Hairy Triangle," "The Lustful River," "Let Me Grow" series, "Help"), and the bodily ("She," "Half-naked," "Let Me Grow," "Touch Me," "Frozen Hands," "I Feel") play a central role in her work. Her art finds people not often represented in society, especially her experiences as an Iranian woman and a member of the LGBTQ community. She wants her art to manifest the diversity of identities coexisting within an individual and challenge how we think about beauty, texture, and gender.
  • Farah Ossouli (b. 1953, Zanjan, Iran) is a painter working and living in Tehran. She received her BA in Graphic...
    Farah Ossouli (b. 1953, Zanjan, Iran) is a painter working and living in Tehran. She received her BA in Graphic Design from the University of Tehran, where she taught between 1972 and 1987. She founded DENA, a female art collective that has organized over 30 exhibitions since 2001. She is a member of the Society of Iranian Painters.
    Farah Ossouli achieved a unique fusion of techniques, materials, themes, and narrations during her forty-year career as an artist. She has been a pioneer in introducing contemporary themes and ideas into miniature painting. The latest collections of Farah Ossouli are based on classical European paintings (by Delacroix, Goya, David, Manet, Titan, Rembrandt, and Ingres, among others), chosen by the artist based on their historical and conceptual relevance vis-à-vis the manifestation of violence in our world today. By transforming the medium (Persian painting) and figures (female holding the torch), Farah Ossouli is presenting the viewer with a new way of looking at the events taking place around us.
  • Andisheh Avini (b. 1974, New York) is an artist who uses painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, often incorporating the traditional...
    Andisheh Avini (b. 1974, New York) is an artist who uses painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, often incorporating the traditional craft of marquetry in his artistic practice.
    Andisheh Avini explores the duality of his own identity by combining iconic images like Persian calligraphy, decorative motifs, and portraiture with occidental concepts of minimalism and abstraction. Avini's approach speaks to a larger globalized society of nomads, the displaced, and the wayfarer, reflecting a contemporary multicultural experience to which many can relate.
  • Mohammad Piryayee (b. 1985, Qom, Iran) is a Tehran-based artist whose works are born on paper. He received his MA...
    Mohammad Piryayee (b. 1985, Qom, Iran) is a Tehran-based artist whose works are born on paper. He received his MA in painting at Tehran University of Art in 2010 and his BA in Handicrafts from Kashan University in 2007.
    His drawings and printmaking are semi-abstract forms, often intimating such genres as still life or interior painting. Each of these 2D drawings can potentially shape-shift into 3D. Sculptures of Mohammad Pirayee are abstracted architectural forms created with materials such as ceramic, scorched wood, and resin, often hinting at Persian/Islamic architecture.
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