Hayv Kahraman

Hayv Kahraman (b. 1981) is a Kurdish-Iraqi painter whose work primarily deals with the body politics of migrant consciousness. Often blended with her personal history as a refugee to Europe and ultimately to the United States, she creates a unique visual language that reflects her nomadic background and challenges various notions of hegemonic control. 

Kahraman’s current and recent solo exhibitions include: Look Me in the Eyes, Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, San Francisco (2024); Hayv Kahraman: The Foreign in Us, Rice University Moody Center For The Arts, Houston (2024); Gut Feelings, The Mosaic Rooms, London (2022); Touch of Otherness, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah (2022); Not Quite Human: Second Iteration, Pilar Corrias, London (2020); Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design, Honolulu, HI (2019); De La Warr Pavilion, Sussex, UK (2019); Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA (2018); and Contemporary Art Museum St, Louis, St. Louis, MO (2017).

Other recent group exhibitions include: The inescapable interweaving of all lives, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (2023); Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond, LACMA, Los Angeles (2023); In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination in the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2022); Our whole, unruly selves, San José Museum of Art, San José (2021); Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, British Museum, London (2021); Blurred Bodies, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose (2021); New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley (2021); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (2019); ICA Boston (2019); and MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2019). Kahraman’s work is in several important international collections including the British Museum, London, UK; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California, US; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), California, US; Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, US; The Rubell Family Collection, Florida, US; The Barjeel Art Foundation Sharjah, UAE; MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art Doha, Qatar; Pizzuti Collection of Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, US; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, US; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, US.

Hayv Kahraman lives and works in Los Angeles.