Sora Kheiry is an Iranian-born visual artist, arts educator, and researcher based in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada. Her practice is rooted in lived experience and shaped by her perspective as a woman, continually negotiating the social, cultural, and historical environments she inhabits. Rather than documenting personal narratives, her work investigates the visible and invisible traces these encounters leave on the body, memory, and identity.

Working across mixed media, collage, drawing, and installation, Kheiry explores the ways images, materials, and processes can reveal experiences that are often difficult to articulate through language. Through cutting, layering, stitching, and reconstruction, she examines how personal histories intersect with broader cultural narratives, and how meaning is continuously shaped through acts of fragmentation, transformation, and repair.

Informed by her background in art research, social semiotics, and theories of the gaze, Kheiry investigates how images construct meaning and how systems of representation influence the ways individuals see themselves, others, and the world around them. Her practice moves between material experimentation and critical inquiry, creating works that reflect the complex relationships between lived experience, visual culture, and society.

Research Interests

Social semiotics, visual culture, theories of the gaze, visual representation, image-making, memory, identity, and the cultural and social production of meaning through images.

Education

Interactive Media Design Diploma, Seneca Polytechnic, Toronto, Canada (2024)

PhD in Art Research, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran

Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Painting, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Art & Architecture University, Tehran, Iran

Professional Development

OCAD University – Introduction to Art Education (2026)

OCAD University – Introduction to Project Management for Creative Professionals (2026)

Selected Exhibitions

Women and Flowers: Transplanted, Cedar Ridge Creative Centre, Scarborough, Canada (2026)

Liberation Narratives, Royal Rose Gallery, Aurora, Canada (2024)

Drawing, John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2023)

Hair, Abrams Claghorn Gallery, California, USA (2023)

Euro Expo Art, Italy (2023)

Coming Home, Gallery 1313, Toronto, Canada (2020)

Printmaking Exhibition, Laleh Gallery, Tehran, Iran (2019)

Iranian Printmaking Expo, Areej Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2018)

Teaching & Community Practice

Arts Educator & Workshop Facilitator, Aurora Cultural Centre, Aurora, Canada (2025–Present)

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Art & Architecture, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran (2012–2019)

Awards & Professional Programs

ArtWorksTO Newcomer Arts Educator Program, Toronto Arts Foundation & OCAD University (2025)

High Honours Graduate, Seneca Polytechnic (2024)

Newcomer & Refugee Artist Mentorship Award, Toronto Arts Council (2023)

Newcomer Arts Award Finalist, Toronto Arts Council (2022)

Selected Publications

2017 — Look as a Sign Source in Iranian Miniature (Mid-Safavid Period), Journal of Visual and Applied Arts, University of Art, Tehran, Iran.

2015 — Semantic Functions of Explicit and Implicit Meaning in the Paintings of Muhammad Siah Qalam, Glory of Art (Jelve-ye Honar), Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.

2015 — Interactive Art as a Text, Global Media Journal, University of Tehran, Iran.