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Join us for the opening of Gut Feelings, a solo exhibition of paintings and mixed media works by Hayv Kahraman. In this new work, the artist delves into scientific research to situate the effects of trauma in the body and to investigate methodologies of physical healing and care. Developing from Kahraman’s ongoing exploration of embodied experiences of ‘Otherness’, the gut acts as a formal and material trope to investigate ideas of trauma and renewal.

I think about my own experiences as an Iraqi who fled the war to Sweden, and can’t help but notice an insidious regurgitation of pain that circulates in the migrant communities I belong to. The system (humanitarian agencies and social welfare governmental agencies) requires the display of trauma, the more you are known to have suffered, the more chance you have of the ‘reward’ of safety. Reliving this trauma can be gut-wrenching and has unrelenting somatic consequences. The confluence of pain and reward becomes a pernicious currency and “we” (refugees) inherit this to a point where it becomes our omnipresent identity. – Hayv Kharaman

About Hayv Kahraman
Hayv Kahraman is an Iraqi artist based in Los Angeles whose figurative paintings examine the gendered and racialized body politics of migrant consciousness. Her work is a reflection on Otherness as a form of dehumanisation, focusing on the gap between the immigrant, non-white, genderly marked other and the way they are perceived by the white hetero-patriarchal normative same. Her work has been exhibited at ICA Boston, Boston (2020); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2020); De La Warr Pavilion, United Kingdom (2019); Nottingham Contemporary, United Kingdom (2019); Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, Claremont (2018); Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) St. Louis, St. Louis (2017); Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha (2017); Rubell Museum, Miami (2016); Cantor Arts Center, Stanford (2013) and the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2009). Forthcoming shows include: The Touch of Otherness, The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Savannah (2022) and ICA San Francisco, San Francisco (2023).

Image: Hayv Kahraman, Entanglements with torshi (detail) 2021. Oil and torshi on linen. 70 x 70 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London. Photography: Fredrik Nilsen.