Working primarily in paint, often in a monochromatic palette, Hayv Kahraman's works refer to a process of cleansing and self-healing. Commenting on this type of self-portraiture, she has said: “I get a kick out of having my body—because the figure is based on my body—that nude body circulating within the art world, being bought, sold, so she becomes this commodity.” Indeed, Kahraman sometimes depicts just the disembodied body parts, including her own—for example, the seven sculpturally rendered oil paintings on linen that comprise the spectacular Pussy Donation Boxes. Each canvas depicts a vulva, cut with a deep slit to transform it into a money box. Simultaneously beautiful and discomforting, the boxes evoke a sense of female sexual agency pressed into a purely transactional commodity. Kahraman has said she was inspired to create this work by media campaigns and events for humanitarian causes that used sexualized imagery in support of such philanthropy. Born in Baghdad, Hayv Kahraman left Iraq in 1991, when it was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein. She and her family found refuge in Sweden, where she began painting at age twelve. She went on to study graphic design in Florence. Today, based in Los Angeles, she draws, paints, and sculpts. Inspired by Islamic manuscript illustration, Italian Renaissance painting and Japanese woodcut prints, her works are informed by her own life experiences.
