Independent New York opens on May 9 and with it, Iraqi-American painter Vian Sora will present a new body of work with David Nolan Gallery (Booth 606). This follows acquisitions of her work by the Baltimore Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Shah Garg Foundation, among others, along with recent profiles in Artnet, The Guardian and Vogue Arabia. Hers is a name we’ve encountered by chance several times over the past few months, so when we were presented with the opportunity to ask her a few questions in advance of the May art fair, we jumped at the chance.
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Sora was born in Baghdad in 1976 but has been based in Louisville, Kentucky since 2009, and the tale of how she got from the former to the latter—a story rife with political turmoil, war and dislocation—is central to her work. Her childhood and young adulthood were shaped by her father owning an art gallery, her mother’s work in auctions and the ubiquitous presence of a totalitarian regime.
“Living under a dictator, Saddam Hussein, meant always hiding in fear… constant repression, and our flight or fight instincts always engaged,” Sora told Observer. The subjects of her earlier work were influenced by self-imposed survival-driven boundaries even while serving as veiled acts of resistance, but since leaving........