Dear Friend of TOAF,
Every year, the Catherine Bratty Award for Best of Art Fair, generously supported by The Rudolph P. Bratty Family Foundation, recognizes an artist whose work stands out for its excellence and vision. This year, that honour goes to Zahra Saleki, an artist whose evocative photography beautifully captures layered emotions and the movement of the human body.
Read on to explore Zahra’s practice, the themes that shape her work, and insights from the judge who selected her for TOAF’s highest honour. We are thrilled to celebrate her success and can’t wait to see where her artistic journey will take her next.
This concludes our Award Recipient spotlight series. Thank you for following along, for your attention, and for championing TOAF artists.
Exciting news about TOAF64 is on the way—stay tuned!
anahita & TOAF Team
Zahra Saleki
Zahra Saleki is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian artist based in T’Koronto, working across photography, video, and installation to explore the intersections of personal and collective experience. Her practice emerges from emotional impulses—sometimes dark, sometimes hopeful—responding to the world around her. Recurring themes of light, the human body, and deformation shape her work, creating narratives of vulnerability, resilience, and transformation. She gained recognition with Girl Talk (2016), featured in NOW Magazine and the AGO, and her impactful Call My Name series on war-affected children.
Hear from the Judge
“I was drawn to the black and white photographic works and it deeply resonated with me. What I liked about this body of work of Zahra Saleki is her use of the long exposure technique. With that, she can transcend the formal boundaries – create dynamic movement as well as other calligraphic forms – thus capturing the modernist aesthetic at its core.”
— Zainub Verjee, Executive Director, Galeries Ontario/Ontario Galleries
What’s next for you?
I’m currently working on two new projects. The first is a dance film based on my family’s experience of war, along with 50 other participants. This surreal and poetic video explores memories, experiences, and nightmares of those who lived through the war.
The second project is a continuation of my This Storm is You series, where I’m introducing new elements to the human figure. This work is scheduled to be exhibited in mid-2025.
If you could do an artist residency anywhere, where would it be and why?
I would love to go to Florence, the heart of Renaissance art, to learn more about lighting techniques and incorporate them into my work.
April 16, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
In-person – Unit 262, 401 Richmond Street West
How do you find the right balance between scarcity and accessibility when it comes to prints and reproductions of your art? How can you maintain the value of your work without saturating the market or diluting its impact? How many is too many?
As an original art-only fair, TOAF often receives questions about our reproduction policy, edition sizes, and the use of multiples. To generate this valuable conversation, we’ve invited seasoned artists and professionals to share their insights on best practices, including edition limits, types of acceptable reproductions, and more.
The 29th edition of the CONTACT Photography Festival
The festival, which will take place May 1–31, 2025 aims to provide opportunities to experience a range of exhibitions in neighbourhoods across greater Toronto, and events including openings, lectures, artist talks, book reviews, workshops, and more.
The 2025 Core Program features curated Exhibitions and Public Art Installations highlighting projects by Canadian and international artists and photographers, developed both independently and in partnership with numerous local and international arts and cultural organizations.
In 2025, lens-based and mixed-media works explore subjects including anti-colonial practices, community-building, Afro-futurism, activism, protest and revolution, personal and collective memory, addressing gaps in historical and contemporary archives, and a return to early photographic practices and experimentation.
That’s A Wrap!
