Sahar. K. Boluki

Sahar K. Boluki Gallery’s founder, Sahar Khanboluki, draws in her upbringing in Tehran’s art world—her father was a well-known Iranian painter—in a curatorial practice that began with exhibitions of Iranian artists including Monir Farman Farmaian, Sirak Melkonian, Gholam Hussein Nami, and Bahram Dabiri in Tehran prior to relocating to Toronto. Through Sahar K. Boluki Gallery, she has offered ongoing support to Iranian artists living and working in Canada, helping to bring greater attention to the artistic contributions of a community that numbers close to 100,000 in the GTA alone, as of 2016. Of the gallery’s eight Canadian artists, seven are Iranian-Canadian, making Sahar K. Boluki Gallery the only gallery in the city with a majority Iranian-Canadian roster.

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Beyond its focus in terms of artists, Sahar K. Boluki Gallery works to educate the public about the aesthetic traditions that ground its artists’ work through its social media channels and curated exhibitions. These traditions include both culturally specific art forms like Persian miniature painting and more complicated, art historical influences such as the different ways in which European modernisms have influenced the work of non-Western vs. Western artists.