Illusion
 

By Golnaz Kiany
 

In her recent series, Illusion (2024–2026), Kiany draws on personal recollection and observation to explore nostalgia within the stratified realities of the present. Often incorporating self-representations set within familiar childhood settings, she reimagines her subjects within the weightless cadence of early life, constructing scenes that remain suspended between recollection and presence.
 

Hovering between play and pause, these images reflect the unfettered vitality of childhood amid uncertainty.
 

Golnaz Kiany (b. 1988, Iran) is an Iranian Canadian artist based in Vancouver.

She holds a BA in Painting from Sooreh University, Tehran (2013). Mentored by acclaimed Iranian master painter Mehrdad Mohebali, Kiany's work is known for its sensitivity to the human figure, gesture, and movement.  Her practice engages with universal themes of memory, time, and identity, reflecting her personal negotiations with the experience of loss and belonging. Over the past decade, Kiany’s work has been exhibited in Tehran, London, Toronto, Vancouver, and New York.