Inflatable cars and sizzling neon: welcome to the material world of Roda Medhat

The Art Gallery of Burlington opened its 2026 season last weekend with a new solo exhibition from Roda Medhat. And the show delivers its first sensory wallop before visitors even cross the threshold.

“No matter which way you enter from, I wanted there to be a big reveal,” says Medhat, calling from Guelph, Ont. To that end, the artist has assembled a collection of enticing artworks that are visible from the gallery’s lobby entrance. 

Ser-Atah is a 12-metre-long carpet which hangs from a back wall, providing a panoramic backdrop to the scene. To its right is a smaller rug — or a video of one, rather. Titled Until the Dirt is Gone, it convincingly conjures the illusion of an electric-red mat, which ripples and shakes on a clothesline. 

In the centre of the tableau is the most alluring spectacle of all: a life-sized tower of four vintage Chevy Malibus. The inflatable sculpture is so tall that it nearly scrapes the ceiling. “You walk in, and the first thing you see are these massive cars,” says the artist. 

“Especially from a distance, you almost question what the material is. You expect it to be solid, and as you approach you can see that it’s this delicate object on the verge of collapse. … I think a lot of the works are delicate in that way.” 

The Chevys could pop and deflate in an instant, the neon and LED sculptures — which are installed elsewhere in the space — could malfunction and flicker to grey. None of that’s expected to happen (fingers crossed). But, says Medhat: “the work has this sort of potential. It’s like you can see that it’s on the verge of action, like something’s about to happen.” It’s what inspired the title of the show: Things I Can Fold, Deflate, and Break.

Much of the work appearing at the AGB was created especially for the room, says Medhat, and he collaborated with fabricators to realize his vision — experts in 3D printing and neon among them. 

The show is his first solo outing for a public institution, and it arrives after a busy 2025. The artist, who is finishing an MFA at the University of Guelph, exhibited widely last year, including showings at the Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), Centre3 (Hamilton) and the Art Gallery of Guelph. Several of his LED rugs are currently on display at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto (until Feb. 1), and a piece from that body of work also appears at the AGB, where it’s propped against a wall with a convincing, fabric-like slump.

The piece specifically mimics the traditional patterning of a Kurdish rug, which is a recurring subject in Medhat’s work. The artist was born in Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, in 1995, and came to Canada as a baby. He’s spent most of his life in the GTA, moving between Scarborough, North York and Markham, but through his art practice, he’s become devoted to researching and referencing Kurdish culture.

“A lot of the things I reference aren’t things that I’ve experienced first-hand,” says Medhat. “I’m remaking the works as a means of understanding [the culture] for myself.”

When I create these works, they're kind of as loud and proud and big and bright as they can be to put [Kurdish] culture in the forefront and make it known.- Roda Medhat, artist

The stack of inflatable Chevys is a nod to the story of the “Iraqi Taxi,” a fleet of Canadian-made ‘81 Malibus which were ordered (and ultimately rejected) by the Iraqi government. In a pair of kinetic neon works, Medhat animates illustrations he found in an old Kurdish reading primer, a book that was banned in Turkey, and circulated in secret. 

“Kurdish culture has been abandoned in a lot of the countries where Kurds are colonized,” says Medhat. “We're not allowed to speak our language or show our culture, listen to our music — all these sorts of things. And so when I create these works, they're kind of as loud and proud and big and bright as they can be to put the culture in the forefront and make it known.”

Medhat graduated from Toronto’s OCAD U in 2017 with aspirations of becoming a filmmaker. During his undergrad, he began working on projects about his heritage — “trying to pull and piece together bits of my history.” After art school, however, he put his screen dreams aside. Another discipline was calling him: sculpture.

The artist had some experience with 3D modelling, and he was curious to see what he could do with ready-made materials. That was the catalyst, he says. “I’d come across new materials and I’d think, ‘Oh, what if this was translated into a textile?’” he says. “How far can you push one material into imitating or replicating another?” Near the end of 2021, he began applying to open calls for public art. “Slowly, I would get these opportunities and it allowed me to start making and producing the works that I imagined.”

Medhat says he’s especially attracted to the colours and textures that remind him of his Y2K childhood: bright and shiny plastic toys, the inflatable furniture from the set of YTV’s The Zone. “I like a lot of things that are called low-culture, things that are mass produced,” he says. Spectacle suits his taste, but it’s a strategic move as well. 

Medhat knows a lot of gallery goers won’t recognize the Kurdish cultural artifacts he references. But everyone’s dazzled by the sizzle of neon or the whimsy of a pink plastic sheep. 

“Identification with the work is important,” he says, and if a viewer connects with the object itself, — so moved by its scale, luminosity or softness that they’re itching to reach out and touch it — then maybe they’ll be curious enough to linger and question what they’re looking at. “Hopefully, they’re able to engage a bit deeper and learn a bit more,” says Medhat. 

“One of the biggest things that I like working with is spectacle and awe. I think you can draw a lot from people with that.”

Roda Medhat. Things I Can Fold, Deflate, and Break. To April 26 at the Art Gallery of Burlington. www.agb.life