Aileen Bahmanipour

North Shore Residency Award Winner

Aileen Bahmanipour is an Iranian-Canadian visual artist and currently is living and working on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) people. She has received her BFA in Painting from the Art University of Tehran and MFA in Visual arts from the University of British Columbia. Bahmanipour has exhibited her work in a body of solo and group exhibitions internationally as well as in Canada, including her solo and group exhibitions at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Vancouver’s grunt gallery, and Two Rivers Gallery. She is the recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant in 2017, Early Career Development grant from BC Arts Council in 2019, Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council’s grant in 2021.

Bahmanipour’s art practice is defined through the medium of drawing, and performative aspects of drawing, installation, sculpture, and paper-making(as a form of sculpture). Her ideas are currently centred on exploring contemporary forms of Iconoclasm. She defines Iconoclasm not to reject or negate the image but to redefine it. To do that, she challenges the figure/ground relations. The ground of the image, through the history of image-making, has been always suppressed and hidden by the covering image.Her challenging question is: can the iconoclast, by vandalizing the image, give an opportunity to the ground of the image to find a language? To become visible? And be part of the image?