NOW AND TEN

The work of contemporary Iraqi artist Hayv Kahraman encompasses
sculpture, drawing and painting with her central themes relating to gender
and feminism as well as diaspora-related issues and the efects herewith
on her. Equally inspired by Arabic calligraphy, Persian miniatures, Japanese
woodblock tradition, Renaissance painting and Art Nouveau, the work of
Iraqi-born Kahraman transcends geographical boundaries to tackle universal
issues that are deeply-rooted in her personal experiences.
The Iraqi artist moved to Sweden with her family as a young girl and from
there to California. The combination of defning origin, art history references
and feminist matters are at the core of her oeuvre. Kahraman explores
the body as a cultural construct and rethinks the bond between body and
space. The many female fgures populating her works identify her dedication
to examining gender inequalities within her own cultural origin such as
the subservience of women to men, as well as society’s high demands of
attaining a particular physical ideal. War and honour killings also come into
play in her work. She confronts both local and globally derived issues about
women through the use of colour, pattern and fguration. Her fgures are
delicate in appearance and comical at times in the exaggeration of their
boufant hairstyles. Her highly polished painting technique set on wood or
fabric juxtapose with the painted patterns on the garments of her fgures,
hence creating a sense of both space and spatial illusion whereby the deeper
questions at hand can be examined. The Interpreter exemplifes Kahraman’s
dedication to these various themes through the mirroring of a female subject
and the details of her dress and through her physical interaction with her
refection, delineated by a dark black line at the centre. Containing negative
space and a lack of decorative detail, spatial and fgural illusion references
a duality of contexts, yet it might also suggest a duality inherent in the
same fgure. Moreover, it alludes to the duality of personalities a woman
must contain so as to be able to navigate the many dificulties of daily
life, ‘interpreting’ moments and situations for herself by reacting to things
physically as well as emotionally in the best possible manner.