Jeune tête d’affiche 2025-2026

Ioana Dragomir

untitled (like a plant newly stood in the air) is part of a series of works dealing with the usage of floral imagery in Virginia Woolf’s novels and essays, bringing specific attention to how the literary forms employed by the author function symbolically and politically, as well as sensually. Responding to YouTube video tours of Woolf’s home, where pans of her garden are spliced between shots of the interiors, Dragomir photographs indoor plants seen through the often-frosted windows of ground-floor apartments. As the plants press against the windows in search of light, their visibility complicates negotiations of privacy. Paradoxically, the shallow depth of field and the glass allow us to glimpse within the image the artist's reflection.

Ioana Dragomir is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Montreal. She holds an Honours BA in studio practice from the University of Waterloo, an MA in Art History and Curatorial Studies from Western University, and a SSHRC-funded MFA in Printmaking from Concordia University. She has presented her work at Support (Montreal, 2023), Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, 2024), Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery (Montreal, 2025), and the plumb (Toronto, 2023), among others. Combining her interest in writing, literary analysis, and curation with drawing, printmaking, textiles, ceramics, and installation, her practice is particularly informed by juxtaposition, metaphor, and slippage.

Ioana Dragomir is the recipient of the 2025-2026 Jeune tête d’affiche contest. This annual contest, dedicated to image-based practices, is open to students of Canadian universities and/or Canadian students abroad who are completing their graduate degree in Fine Arts in the spring or fall of 2025.

The selected artist will have their image featured in Dazibao’s programming pamphlet. This brochure benefits from a large distribution locally, nationally, and internationally, thus giving the selected image to considerable exposure.

(Click on the image to see previous posters)

Jamie Ross (2024-2025) / Mena El-Shazly (2023-2024) / OK Pedersen (2022-2023) / Jordan Blackburn (2021-2022) / John Boyle-Singfield (2020-2021) / Zinnia Naqvi (2019-2020) / Ralitsa Doncheva (2018-2019) / Emma-Kate Guimond (2017-2018) / Simon Belleau (2016-2017) / Celia Perrin Sidarous (2015-2016) / Didier Morelli (2014-2015) / Rosika Desnoyers (2013-2014) / Alex Kisilevich (2011-2012) / Juan Ortiz-Apuy (2010-2011) / Karen Zalamea (2009-2010) / Atom Deguire (2008-2009)