Pilar Corrias is pleased to present a solo booth (A21) of recent and never-before-seen paintings and drawings by Hayv Kahraman. The displayed body of work builds upon the artist’s scientific research into psychotherapeutic models of ‘neurosculpting’, the potential to radically rewrite neural pathways.
Emphasising the impact of socio-cultural forces on our somatic states, Kahraman’s artworks centre the digestive organs as the nexus between pain and psychological transfiguration. The gut – our so-called ‘second brain’ – is radically reclaimed by the artist as an alternative epistemological engine through which to develop, digest and share new ways of thinking, seeing and relating to disenfranchised communities.
“This new body of work has layers from neuroscience and the microbial world, and how these relate to trauma. If there is any goal to be had it is to find ways to mend, to think about how the particular ideas in these paintings can possibly pave the way for us to repair.”
— Hayv Kahraman, 2022
12.7 x 53.3 cm
5 x 21 in
Framed:
21 x 62.1 x 4 cm
8 1/4 x 24 1/2 x 1 5/8 in
“We have the ability to restructure and rewire the neural pathways in our brain. We have the capacity to unlearn and relearn by reshaping these pathways. Of course this is incredibly important when it comes to trauma and PTSD: it offers us a way to get unstuck.”
— Hayv Kahraman, 2022
Using bacteria as an allegory for ‘othered’, vulnerable bodies, several works have been painted with the lilac dye from torshi – a staple Middle Eastern dish of fermented vegetables said to improve the balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut, and in turn boost brain health. Other works have been painted or drawn on handmade flax fabric, a diaphanous material produced via microbial activity in the soil before it is spun and ‘refined’ into linen.
“For somebody like me, who has lived on the margins and has always thought about how alterity is both embodied and perceived, the microbial world is a testament to looking at difference more as a collaboration.”
— Hayv Kahraman, 2022
Hayv Kahraman
Hayv Kahraman’s work explores the transformation of agency undergone by the colonial subject. Her figures are placed in seemingly impossible poses akin to circus performers or contortionists, attracting the voyeuristic gaze through an eroticisation and fetishisation of the ‘other’. Yet their faces stare plainly back at us; the gaze is tolerated. This interplay of gazes allows for the subjects to be both looked at and to look back at, subverting the coloniser’s power, and calling attention to the dehumanisation of the colonised.
Kahraman’s freak show acts, like immigrants and refugees, occupy a space of both invisibility and visibility - they are relegated to certain subsections of society and ignored, while remaining naturally visible. Though her figures are vulnerable, they present themselves deliberately, showing that otherness is presented as a construct and not a given.
Find out more about Hayv Kahraman here.
