Candice Dehnavi

Candice Dehnavi (b.1997). British/Iranian, UK-born artist, currently living and working in London.

MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art 2023

BA, Manchester School of Art - First class Honours (2016 - 2019)

Awards:

2023 Gilbert Bayes Award

2021 Air Gallery AiR open winner - Castlefield gallery associate award

2019 Leonard James Little Art Prize 

Residencies:

2022 The Exchange 2 with Castlefield gallery

2018 Joya: arte + ecologia / AiR

Group exhibitions:

2023 MA1 Sculpture RCA 2023 Show, RCA Battersea studio building, London

2023 Hung, Drawn and Quartered, Standpoint Gallery, London

2023 EXTENSION, Phony art collective, The Regency Town House, Brighton

2023 Everything is Temporary, RCA Work in Progress Group Show, Three Locks brewery, London

2022 Re:Call Air Gallery, Air Gallery, Manchester

2021 Air-Open 2021, Air Gallery, Manchester

My practice has evolved in exploring the distance of cultural familiarity: the other within and given body through recreated memories. Memories of an Iranian-English upbringing find themselves exaggerated through dreamlike imagery that communicates hazily remembered experiences and stories. My work samples disparate elements from a personal history of detachment, and through the lens of absurdity, presents a comically exaggerated visual space into which one can insert their own narrative meaning. It transverses the dreamlike nature of formative experiential recollection to a physical world of representation.

Each piece could exist in isolation, but there’s a thematic linearity that runs throughout; my wider practice is an act of cohesive world building. It often assumes a childlike demeanour, using comedy and play to hide deeper issues: intersectional identity politics, cultural estrangement, gender identity and the reflective doubt of self-image.