In 2006, the artist Hayv Kahraman moved to the US, then occupying her homeland, Iraq, and began painting a woman who has been a fixture of her work ever since. With parchment-pale skin, a swoosh of raven hair, scarlet lips and strong brows, this figure recalls the characters set against unadorned backgrounds in 12th-century Baghdad’s miniature painting, while her apple-round breasts and cool, heavy-lidded gaze suggest a quattrocento nude, rendered with the clean lines of Japanese prints.
It is a composite identity its maker understands well. Kahraman was 11 when she was smuggled out of Iraq during the first Gulf war. Her family settled in Sweden, where she spent her teens; she now lives in Los Angeles. “As an immigrant, I’ve always felt on the periphery of society,” she says.
