Iraqi painter depicts the impacts of war
Hayv Kahraman – Curfew, 2015, Oil on linen, 185x244cm
Courtesy the artist and The Third Line
Hayv Kahraman was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1981, moved to Sweden at the age of 11 and began painting at the age of 12. She uses art in various ways to create something that is extremely unique and catching. Kahraman’s artwork depicts the impacts of war, significantly the affect on war women. Her diverse stylistic references range from Japanese and Arabic calligraphy art nouveau, Greek iconography and Persian miniature.
Hayv Kahraman’s work contends with the marginal spaces between Western and Middle Eastern culture, including the physical traits and the concepts of gender through her individual histories as an Iraqi immigrant to Europe then to the United States. Her work has intertextual notes of the Western and Middle Eastern art histories, but her personal aesthetic, as an immigrant, is of her very own and belongs to neither.
