Country of Origin: Iraq (born in Baghdad, 1981); currently based in Los Angeles, USA

Medium(s):

• Painting

• Drawing

• Sculpture

• Performance

• Installation

Key Themes in Their Work:

Hayv Kahraman’s work navigates the complexities of identity, displacement, gender, and the postcolonial female body. Her art often draws from her personal experiences as a refugee and a woman from the Middle East, addressing the traumas of forced migration, cultural fragmentation, and the objectification of the female form. Key themes include:

• Diasporic memory and fragmentation

• Feminist critique and bodily autonomy

• Hybrid identities and liminality

• Orientalism and visual stereotypes

• Postcolonial narratives of violence and survival

• The aesthetics of manuscript illumination, Persian miniatures, and Japanese ukiyo-e

Her figures—typically female and drawn in a stylized, lyrical form—are simultaneously sensual and confrontational, reclaiming agency through distorted anatomies and symbolic repetition. Kahraman also integrates anatomical studies, historical texts, and traditional craft techniques, weaving them into a vocabulary of resistance and remembrance.

Notable Exhibitions or Collections Their Work Is Part Of:

Hayv Kahraman’s work has been exhibited widely across major international institutions and is included in several significant public and private collections. Notable highlights include:

Solo Exhibitions:

• “Acts of Reparation” – Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2023)

• “The Body Politic” – De La Warr Pavilion, UK (2022)

• “Displaced Choreographies” – The Mosaic Rooms, London (2018)

• “To Be” – Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2015)

• “How Iraqi Are You?” – The Third Line, Dubai (2012)

Group Exhibitions:

• “Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond” – LACMA, Los Angeles (2023)

• “No Man’s Land: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection” – Rubell Museum, Miami (2015)

• “Home—So Different, So Appealing” – Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2017)

Collections:

• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

• The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

• The Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah

• The Rubell Family Collection, Miami

• The British Museum, London

• The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.

• The Pérez Art Museum, Miami