Tina Dion

Tina Dion (b. 1992) is an Iranian-American painter living and working in New York City. Born in Iran and raised in Los Angeles, her work is driven by an ongoing inquiry into memory, displacement, and the construction of identity. Growing up immersed in Persian poetry, music, and cultural traditions shaped the way she experiences the world—with lyricism, emotional intensity, and a sensitivity to metaphor. This early immersion fostered a deeply reflective temperament and a sustained engagement with questions of beauty, history, and the inner life, all of which continue to inform her practice. Working primarily in oil, Dion draws from archival imagery of pre-1979 Iran—including vintage magazines and photographs of royal women—which she reimagines through a visual language that moves between figuration and abstraction. The introduction of tape across the faces of her subjects marked a decisive breakthrough in her practice, becoming the catalyst for a body of work centered on censorship, visibility, and erasure. Through this gesture— both obstructive and painterly—alongside a particular sensitivity to the rendering of women’s hair, her paintings examine the politicization of the female body and the tension between beauty, control, and autonomy within both personal and collective histories. Dion received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and her Master of Fine Arts from the New York Academy of Art. Her work has been included in group exhibitions, and her paintings are held in various private collections in the United States and abroad.