01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Hayv Kahraman's Cleaning, with Footnotes part #68

Hayv Kahraman

Cleaning, c. 2009

Oil on canvas

52 × 86 in | 132 × 218.4 cm

Private collection

This work is part of a series of large canvases titled Domesticated Marionettes where the representation of the mundane life of an ordinary housewife is highlighted and the monotony of daily chores including that of sexual fulfillment is the focus.

These women assume a false sense of sovereignty and the delusion of being queens in their homes. More on Domesticated Marionettes

Hayv Kahraman’s oil-on-linen paintings depict women in both peaceful repose and in unsettling contortions. Embracing material exploration, the Iraqi-born artist has sliced into her canvases, incorporated acoustic foam amid the linen, painted on wood, made sculpture, sketched, and choreographed performance. Kahraman draws on disparate influences including Renaissance painting, Persian miniature painting, Art Nouveau, and her own experience as a woman in the Iraqi diaspora. Kahraman studied at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts and Umeå University in Sweden. She has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, London, Dubai, and beyond. Her work belongs to several collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Rubell Family Collection, the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, and the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha. More on this painting

Hayv Kahraman is an Iraqi artist born in 1981. At the age of 11, her family left Baghdad during the Gulf War and settled in Sweden for several years, where her status of refugee became a catalytic experience for her artistic practice. Having studied graphic design at the Accademia di Arte e Design di Firenze, Italy, Kahraman uses a variety of media including sculpture, drawing and painting to address difficult issues relative to gender inequalities, war and the migrant experience. Channeling refined aesthetics inspired from Islamic arts, Art Nouveau and Japanese paintings to confront the viewer with controversial scenes, the artist engages with the notion of femininity in Middle Eastern cultures. Her approach to gender roles and female identity encapsulates how women are persecuted in their own culture through systematic submission to the male gaze, physicality and politics. More on Hayv Kahraman

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