ARTIST STATEMENT

​

Born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq during multiple wars, Vian Sora found refuge with her brush in hand. Her landscapes are shaped by destruction, vivid contrasts, and emotional cacophony.

 

Over the past twenty years, Sora’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. With this exhibition, Vian Sora marks her tenth year living in the United States. The Speed Art Museum recently acquired Sora’s painting "Echo and Narcissus".

 

From Miranda Lash, Curator of Contemporary Art, Speed Art Museum: “Sora’s visions fuse her own experiences with fairytales, Iraqi history, traditional Islamic influences, and painterly abstraction. Though they are largely abstract, Sora’s paintings suggest figures and places, including gardens and warzones, landscapes of lush fertility and terrible decay, and cycles of life and death. These recent works reflect the artist’s latest experiments with abstraction and bright, neon colors.”