Mahsa Merci Toronto, b. 1990

Mahsa Merci, born in Tehran, Iran, holds an MFA from the University of Manitoba, Canada, and currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.

Merci works across painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, and photography to examine how the self is shaped within structures of power that regulate and constrain it. For her, identity is not fixed but continuously formed through processes of repetition, suppression, and internalization that become inscribed onto the body and reorganize it from within. The body emerges as a shifting site where these forces unfold, fragmenting, extending, and entangling with constructed forms, remaining in a suspended state rather than resolving into stability. Her material approach reinforces this condition: layered oil on panel and contrasting sculptural elements carry traces of accumulation, erasure, and tension, embedding instability into the work itself. Rooted in her position as a queer Iranian artist, her practice reflects the lived negotiation between visibility and concealment, where structures of control shape both the body and its conditions of becoming.