Valerie Behiery, PhD
Valerie Behiery is a Canadian artist, writer, museum educator, academic and soon-to-be art therapist whose life has been completely devoted to the arts and to their making, teaching, and study. As a young painter who exhibited in Canada and France, she experienced firsthand the profound therapeutic power of art making and its capacity to reveal and heal conscious and unconscious issues, explaining why she enjoyed teaching art and is now fully committed to the therapeutic arts.
Finished her course work for her Post-Masters diploma in art therapy, Valerie is dedicated to helping others heal themselves through art and the self-exploration, discovery and understanding it provides.
Convinced of the power of the arts to encourage positive social change, Valerie has also been devoted, in the last twenty years, to bringing visibility to underrepresented artists, mostly from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Her writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals, reference works, art catalogues, and freelance publications like Visual Arts News, Tribe, Nafas, esse or Vogue Arabia. A global nomad, Valerie has taught at universities in Canada, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia where she is currently an assistant professor teaching, among other things, the history of architecture, French, and medical ethics.