For Iraqi American artist Vian Sora, exhibiting in Dubai with her new paintings—mesmerizing compositions of fluid, vivid abstraction—is a full-circle moment. “I was manifesting going back to this region,” she said, surrounded by her artworks at The Third Line, which is hosting its first solo show with the artist through December 5th. A survivor of the Iraq War, Sora, who is of Kurdish origin, escaped from her homeland and sought refuge with her family in the Emirati city back in 2007.
Her tumultuous journey has also taken her to Turkey and the U.S., where she is currently based with her husband in Louisville, Kentucky. Sora hasn’t been back to Iraq since. Even after all this time, talking about her homeland remains a sensitive issue. “It’s been very emotional for me,” the artist told Artsy, speaking about her return to Dubai. “From my hotel room, I could see the sea and I can’t go home. All these emotions created this work.”
On the day that our interview took place, it was the eve of the contentious 2024 American presidential election, where the world, including Sora, was anxiously awaiting to see if either former U.S. President Donald Trump or current Vice President Kamala Harris would win. “Either way, it’s going to affect my family and my life here,” she said. Sora often brought up her family during conversation. After all, her early family life in Iraq was where it all began for her as an aspiring artist.
Born in Baghdad in 1976, Sora is a child of war, but was surrounded by a universe of art and literature at home. “My family tried to create the opposite of instability,” she recalled. Her mother’s family ran an auction house, which was a gathering place for some of Iraq’s notable modernists, including Faiq Hassan. And some of her first artworks as a child were portraits of her father. In the year that he died, Hassan advised 12-year-old Sora not to go to art school and find her own artistic voice. And that she did.
Comprising 11 paintings and several works on paper and spread across two rooms, Sora’s exhibition explores a fascinating array of contrasting ideas: the past and the future, destruction and renewal, expansion and restraint. Her life story, which has involved uprootedness, movement, trauma, and perseverance, can be sensed in her expressive and eruptive canvases.
“I confuse people and sometimes I confuse myself,” said Sora, who has a degree in computer science, noting the multilayered nature of her pieces. “I don’t want a one-dimensional aspect of the work. I’m a confusing character who went through a lot.” But ultimately, Sora says that there is no particular message in her art, and that her work is about connections—be it between regions, populations, or her memories. As a woman, an Iraqi, an immigrant, and a survivor, the artist hopes to break down some of the borders that are often placed between people. “I am addressing the collective consciousness and the connection between all of us here,” she added.
Her emotionally charged works are awash with gestural markings and swathes of bold colors, as seen in Olivine (all works 2024) and Seabed. In these paintings, the viewer can sense hints of Mesopotamian boats, botanical elements, obscure creatures, and even Arabic calligraphy. According to the artist, the title of her exhibition—“House of Pearls”—is partially inspired by the practice of pearl diving, which across time has been crucial to the economies of both Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. She also regards the pearl as a key metaphor for the enduring struggle to reach a state of beauty.
“The pearl is created from the bacteria being irritated by the outsider,” she explained. “I was thinking about these moments of invasion of the body and what can be formed from struggle and breaking your borders and boundaries, which is a personal metaphor.” The pearl is resilient, just like the lotus flower, which rises through the mud and withstands harsh weather conditions, and is represented in the artist’s painting Astral.
Sora noted that most of her paintings are oriented vertically, which, according to the artist, symbolizes growth. “Somehow the paintings are trying to reach, they are trying to go up,” she said. In a way, one could argue that Sora’s paintings are about transformation and the notion of becoming, a moment of birth in all its messiness.
Indeed, the artist herself is going through a new phase in her life and career. Having overcome many of the challenges of adjusting to life in the U.S., Sora will be having a six-year survey exhibition of her works that will travel between the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, and the Asia Society Texas Center in 2025 and 2026.
The artist sees it as a moment to assert her work on her own terms: “Everyone wants to tick a certain box with artists like myself—a female from the Middle East. They want to associate you with a certain image,” she said. “For the last 15 years, I’ve been trying to defy that, to go against it and create my own work and create my own identity that everyone will connect to.”
