Helia Pouyanfar received her B.A. in Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley in 2019. 

Pouyanfar’s artistic research has focused on reflective objects and our physical relationship to them. In her sculptures and installations, she has used mirrors to study the in-between. By hindering its intrinsic purpose, by somewhat covering its surface with materials that obscure its reflective ability; she both includes and excludes the viewer at the same time in her works to create a space in between being and non-existence. She covers the mirror with materials that are culturally and historically significant to research the idea of looking at oneself through those materials and the effect it might have on one’s image. Pouyanfar obscures the fully formed reflection and presents a vague, distorted, and unrecognizable image of the viewer to question the idea of seeing is believing. In the liminal space created in her work, she attempts to study form in the context of its placement.