Arts & Expression, South Asian, Visual Art
Shamsi Shahrokhi is an award-winning graduate of Ontario College of Art & Design (now OCAD University) with a major in drawing and painting in 2003. She also holds a Bachelors of Art from Tehran, Iran.
She pioneered an award-winning technique called Heat Drawing, where she creates images and shapes on heat sensitive papers without using conventional materials, but by applying heat to their surfaces.
Shamsi has received several awards and has exhibited in venues throughout Canada and Iran. These include: OCAD’s Dorothy Hoover Award; First prize at the Sixth National Biennial Competition of Art and Paper and the Blueman Group’s First Annual Vortex Art Competition; Second prize at the Latcham Gallery’s 2007 Annual Juried Exhibition and John B. Aird’s 2009 Annual Juried Drawing Exhibition; Juror’s Award of Thames Art Gallery’s 2005 Juried Exhibition, Art Gallery of Peel’s 2007, 34th Annual Juried Show, and Varley Gallery’s 2008 York Region Juried Exhibition.
Her piece titled Distinguished Women has been selected as the cover of Ontario’s Community Arts Matters! (CAM) magazine, for its Spring 2007 issue. She gave a live demonstration on Toronto’s City TV’s Breakfast Television on 07 May 2003.
In 2011 & 2013, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) sponsored Shamsi as an Iranian Art Community Representative at the Tirgan Festival and the Cultura Festival, where her work titled ‘Images of Iran’ and ‘Miniature Horses’ were used in RBC promotional material.
In 2014, Shamsi received the Iranian Canadian Congress (ICC) Achievement Award for her outstanding personal achievements and contribution to the community.
Shamsi’s works are gaining global recognition and belong to some significant private collections including collections of the RBC Group of Canada, National Bank of Canada and the Mayor of Toronto, David Miller.
Other media that Shamsi paints with include water colour, oil, acrylic, pastel, multimedia and printmaking.
Shamsi has taught at the Varley Art Gallery in Markham, Ontario. She resides in Thornhill, Ontario, with her family and teaches art lessons at her private studio.
