Aileen Bahmanipour

Discipline: Storytelling, Visual Arts
Homebase: Vancouver
Languages: English, Farsi/Persian
Contact Me: (604) 446-0099 , Email , Web

Aileen Bahmanipour is an Iranian born Vancouver-based artist. She has received her BFA in Painting from the Art University of Tehran and MFA in Visual arts at the University of British Columbia. Bahmanipour has exhibited her work in a body of solo and group exhibitions in Iran as well as in Canada, including her solo and group exhibitions at Vancouver's grunt gallery, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Gallery 1515, Hatch Art Gallery, and Two Rivers Gallery. She is the recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant in 2017, Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Artist in 2019, and Early Career Development grant from BC Arts Council in 2019.

Testimonials

Aileen Bahmanipour is a creative, hard-working and organized individual. She is capable of instructing a classroom of students in the art-based subject matter. She was well-liked by her students, colleagues and managers. I would highly recommend Aileen for a position within the art field or a position working with children. Kate Dinis, Manager of After School Program/K-12, The Arts Connection

Project Examples

Design for a Treehouse

'Design for a Treehouse' is a subject matter as a way for us to think about living spaces as an art form. Further examining its design, the materials it is built with, and its purpose etc. 1. Drawing station: I asked students to make a list of materials, elements, characteristics, functions or anything that they expect for their treehouses. Then I shared a book with them about the best treehouse's designs around the world and asked them to look at other architecture's ideas. Then, I asked them to design their own treehouses according to the list that they made. 2. Painting station: I asked students to paint one day of their life in a treehouse; what are the things that they can do there? what can they see? what can they experience? 3. Sculpture station: Students worked on making a 3D tree and our designed treehouse. I showed students how to use armature wire and why sometimes artists need to use that technique for their projects. Students wrapped the wire skeletons with aluminum foil, painted the trees, and made houses out of paper, wood sticks, and other lightweight materials.

Dinner Table

Paintings of foods have been an important part of the Still Life genre through art history that have represented the culture about the food and how people live in that culture. Being interested in this form of representation of culture through the food, I asked students to design their own dinner table, what they want to put on it, why, and how they want to present that food? We painted boards as our tables. Then, we drew and painted the foods on different coloured papers. We painted the plates and dishes separately and assembled the food drawings on them. By using cardboard pieces, we raised some pieces to give a third dimension to the assemblage of our tables. Students chose the foods that were meaningful for them; the foods that they usually have with their families in certain occasions and time of the year, the foods that bring them not only the joy of the taste but also the sweet memories and sense of bonding to a community and culture. Through this project, students learned about the historical role and importance of representation of foods through history and art history. Food as a cultural technique, a sociopolitical product that has gone through capitalism, colonialism, and industrialism, and yet it has preserved its symbolic value as there are rare sacred ceremonies that certain foods don't be served in them. Students also learned bout different food cultures, different ways of valuing and preserving our nutrition sources.

Trace of My Palm's Lines

Our bodies contain many forms of lines, each line contains unique information: our wrinkles that can represent our age, our finger prints that can represent our identities, and our palm's lines that might be read by a fortuneteller to tell us about our future! Observing such organic lines, embodied in our bodies, is a fascinating practice! That is a way that we can trace the visual elements of drawing not only on a paper but on our alive bodies. It requires a sensitivity to be able to recognize these lines, observe and trace them. In this project, I encouraged students to look at their hands carefully and compare the differences between their palm's lines with each other. I helped them to make paper clays, trace and cut the shapes of their hands off of it. Then, I asked them to draw as many lines as they can see on their palm. Realistic to expressive, each student drew what he/she could observe and recognize as lines on their palms.

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