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ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS > Visual > Central
Asia
Shamsi Shahrokhi | To Shamsi Shahrokhi, art is a commitment
to honour both her Persian culture and her life 
in Canada. A pleasing combination of eastern
aesthetics executed via Western-style painting techniques is observed
in most her paintings. Shamsi works in a wide variety of media
such as water colour, oil, acrylic, pastel, multimedia, printmaking
and heat drawing.
Shamsi is an award winning graduate
from the Ontario College of Art and Design with a major in drawing
and painting. Born in Tehran, Iran, she obtained her bachelor's
of Art degree from Allameh Tabatabaie University in Tehran. She
attended various workshops under instruction and supervision of
well-known artists.
Shamsi has invented and pioneered
an award winning painting technique called Heat Drawing, where
she creates images and shapes on heat sensitive papers without
using conventional materials such as paintbrushes, but by applying
heat to their surfaces.
Her Heat Drawing art works have
been extremely successful and have achieved the following:
- Acknowledgements from the
Honorable Mike Colle, former Ontario Minister of Citizenship
and Immigration; the Mayor of Toronto, Mr. David Miller; Honorable
Hazel McCallion, the Mayor of Mississauga; and Mrs. Susan Kadis,
Previous Member of Parliament for Thornhill.
- Community Arts Ontario selection
of work for the cover of spring 2007 issue of Community Arts
Matters! (CAM) newspaper of Ontario.
- Live demonstration on 'City
TV's Breakfast Television' on 7 May 2003.
Her awards include:
2003 | Ontario College of Art and Design's Dorothy Hoover Award
2004 | First Prize Award amongst 225 works at the Sixth National
Biennial Competition of Art and Paper in Ottawa, and collected
by the National Bank of Canada
2005 | Juror's Merit Award at the 2005 Juried Exhibition of Thames
Art Gallery in Chatham, Ontario
2006 | Grand Prize Winner of the 2006 First Annual Vortex Art
Competition hosted by the Blue Man Group in Toronto
2007 | Second Prize Award winner of the Latcham Gallery's 2007
Annual Juried Exhibition in Stouffvile, Ontario
2007 | Jurors' Award at Art Gallery of Peel's 34th Annual Juried
Show in Brampton, Ontario 2008 | Jurors' Merit Award of the 2008
Annual York Region Juried Exhibition at the Varly Art Gallery
of Markham.
2009 | Second Prize Award of the "Drawing 2009", 10th
Annual Juried Drawing Exhibition at the John B. Aird Gallery in
Toronto.
Some of the famous galleries
that have displayed Shamsi's works are: Galerie d' Art Jean-Claude-Bergeron
in Ottawa, Contemporary Museum of Arts in Iran, Wagner-Rosenbaum
Gallery, Gallery 401, OCAD Gallery, S.P.I.N Gallery, Kabat Wrobel
Gallery, Loop Gallery and Sole Gallery in Toronto, Thames Art
Gallery in Chatham, Art Gallery of Mississauga in Mississauga,
Varley Art Gallery of Markham, The Latcham Gallery of Stouffville
and Art Gallery of Peel in Brampton, Ontario.
Shamsi is actively involved
in community arts projects and teaches art to children and youth
at Varly Art Gallery and conducts art lessons for all ages at
her studio in Thornhill.
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