Pari Azarm Motamedi was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. She studied and worked as an architect and urban planner in Iran and England, before moving to Canada in 1984 with her husband and two young sons. She has practiced and created art for more than thirty years and has presented exhibitions, papers and workshops in various cultural and academic venues including Columbia University, Oxford University, Simon Fraser and Emily Carr universities, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and the Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery at the University of Victoria, as well as private and public art galleries in Tehran and Vancouver.

My Blue Canvas: Life and Art, Memories and Meditations ($70 U.S. 520 pages), published in Canada by Anahita Productions in May 2016, narrates, in lyric prose, memories of her childhood and youth in Iran, coping with revolution and war before immigrating to Canada. Much of her artwork and writing emanates from the traditions of Persian poetry and culture.

"It also presents my work of the past thirty years," she writes, "created in Vancouver on the lingo-visual translations of the work of classical and contemporary Persian poets as well as other examples of my art in different media. I have presented papers on my lingo-visual translations of poetry at the University of Oxford and other academic institutions."

Publications, Awards, Articles and Catalogues:

Mohammadreza Shafii Kadkani. In the Mirror of the Stream: Selected Poems; Paintings and English Translations: Pari Azarm Motamedi; Editor: Alan Williams: Sokhan Publishers, Tehran, 2008; Distribution in North America: www.ketab.com

Seeker, Sentry, Sage: Shades of Islam in Contemporary Art, Introduction: Clarity and Confusion; Pari Azarm Motamedi; Maltwood Gallery, University of Victoria, 2006

4th International Conference of the Visual Arts; Vancouver; Canada, 1997

Fear of Others: Art Against Racism;Vancouver, 1989

Artropolis: Exhibition of Contemporary British Columbia Art; Vancouver 1987

Games of Destiny: Art, design, meaning and fun merge in the wearable game pieces of Pari Azarm Motamedi; Sharon Elaine Thompson, Lapidary Journal, Pennsylvania, May 1995

Beyond Tradition; Look West; Michelle Vanthiel, Calgary, October/November, 1994

Diamonds Unplugged; Canadian Jeweller, July, 1994

DeBeers Award; Beyond Tradition: A Union of Diamonds and Craft, National Jewellery Competition, Canada, June 1994

Canadian Craft Museum Award, Vancouver, June 1994

[BCBW 2016]