This exhibition brings the works of Keyvan Mahjoor's series Bird’s-Eye View and Leila Zelli's The Streets Bear Their Footsteps series into conversation, exploring the relationship between past and present, memory and current events, and the representation of women and their stories.
Keyvan Mahjoor’s works in black ink on paper combine symbolic elements that, in their composition, recall Persian miniatures. Through the presence of women and birds, among other elements, they open onto a lyrical universe that tells and creates a story in which the text, often illegible, is a visual element that contributes to the composition and narrative form of these spaces, where the traditional form of Persian miniature art meets a contemporary, refined aesthetic.
The interplay of emptiness and fullness in Mahjoor's works also echoes the visible and the invisible, opening a spiritual reading. He draws every day, in a practice that he experiences as a form of meditation, bringing forth fragments of personal memories of his hometown, Isfahan. Informed by Persian miniature and literature, his work develops an intimate narrative into which anyone can nevertheless project themselves. Since leaving Iran in 1981, he has made one drawing every day in a notebook. He now has 45 notebooks, each containing 365 drawings, accompanied by a note about what happened that day and what he was feeling.
Leila Zelli, who also works with the figures of women and birds, brings together the present and the past in her series of drawings, videos, and sculptures entitled The Streets Bear Their Footsteps, highlighting the timeless struggle of women for freedom.
Zelli draws a parallel between the Amazons depicted in ancient reliefs, interpreted by historians as “Persians” facing the Greeks, and their designation as the Others, the enemies, the barbarians, the weak, and Iranian women today, whose struggle for freedom is expressed through the movement of their bodies in public space, by dancing and performing athletic gestures. Their weapons are their phones, which capture and disseminate these actions on social media, creating new representations and new meanings of courage and strength in everyday life.
Also engaging in a meditative reflection on freedom, courage, and action, she actively participates in collective initiatives within the Iranian community in its pursuit of freedom.
Keyvan Mahjoor was born and raised in the historical city of Isfahan, Iran, where from a very young age he was immersed in ancient art historical context and the city’s complex, multilayered cultural fabric. The masters of the art of Persian miniature painting trained him as a miniaturist. Even though modern in appearance, stylistic references of miniature painting are still evident in the composition and design elements of his latest drawings.
Keyvan Mahjoor’s sketches are narrative and lyrical; they weave together human figures, mythical characters, and symbolic forms; and are embedded with traditional arabesque designs and calligraphy. The use of text for illustrative purposes is a common and repetitive theme in Mahjoor’s drawings. Historically, the function of calligraphic inscriptions used in Persian paintings and illustrations served both an aesthetic and informative purpose. While the scripts and text in Keyvan Mahjoor’s drawings are incomprehensible, perhaps of greater importance is the manner by which the text has been implemented within the pictorial space and the cavities the words occupy within the framework of the drawings.
Upon the completion of his degree in Persian Literature from Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Mahjoor worked for the Niavaran Cultural Centre of Tehran for five years, and later established Ketab-e-Azad, a bookstore and publishing company in 1979. He moved to Montreal, Canada in 1981 where he has been based since, and continues to be an active voice for cultural and humanitarian causes in the exiled Iranian community. Having begun his exhibition practice only in the last couple of years, Mahjoor’s works have been enthusiastically received in various venues in Montreal and Toronto.
Keyvan is an important figure within the Iranian community, notably through his kindness, hospitality, extensive knowledge of historical and contemporary issues, and his humanist and cultural presence within the Iranian community in exile.
Born in Tehran (Iran), Leila Zelli lives and works in Montréal. She holds an MFA (2020) and a BFA (2016) in Visual and Media Arts from Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Zelli is interested in the relationship that we have with the ideas of “others” and “elsewhere” and more specifically within this geopolitical space often referred to by the questionable term “Middle East.” She creates in situ digital installations using existing images, videos and texts often found on the Internet. The resulting visual and sound experiences create an opportunity to reflect on the state of the world, the relationship with the Other and the actual effect of our actions on humanity.
Her work has been shown, among others, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Collection Arts du Tout-Monde), at the Conseil des arts de Montréal (2019-2020), at Galerie de l’UQAM (2020, 2019, 2015, 2024), at Dazibao (2023) at the Foreman Gallery of Bishop's University (2024) and at the Toronto Biennial (2024). In November 2025, her latest video work, titled Each Street Tells The Story of a Fearless Woman, premiered at the Loop Barcelona fair.
Her works are part of Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal collection, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts collection, the Musée Pointe-à-Callière, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec’s Prêt d’oeuvres d’art collection, the Musée d'art de Joliette, the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul collection and the collections of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Hydro-Québec and Desjardins. She is the laureate of the 2023 Prix Lynne-Cohen and the 2021 laureate of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art.
She wishes to thank Danielle Lysaught and Paul Hamelin for the year-long residency that marked the beginning of this project in Montreal; the one-month residency at La Napoule, Jean-Philippe Thibault, her everyday ally, as well as her friends Jean-François Gauthier and Maxime Bruneau for their impeccable technical support. Her project has received support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts, to whom she extends her warmest thanks.
