Competition Winners: Vian Sora
Michael Rooks · New American Paintings South Issue #166
Born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq, during multiple wars, my paintings are infused with emotional tension and based on confronting destruction and decay, challenging boundaries through intentional color contrast within gestural landscapes. My interest is to express untold emotional landscapes to suggest the turmoil that can disturb the thin surface of social order and its effect on the human soul. My paintings suggest figures and places, including gardens and war zones, landscapes of lush fertility and terrible decay, cycles of life and death, that are generating order in chaos.
June 1, 2023