If you find yourself in need of a message of hope and beauty during these cold January days, visit the Grinnell College Museum of Art to see four colorful paintings by Iraqi American artist Vian Sora (b. 1976), on exhibit through April 8, 2023.
In 2022, the Grinnell College Museum of Art acquired these four works by Sora who was born in Baghdad, Iraq and now resides in Louisville, Kentucky. Her work explores the awesome power of natural forces—water in particular—as a backdrop for human experiences of trauma, displacement, and persistent hope of transcendence.
Sora’s artistic process is about addition and subtraction. She first applies spray paint, acrylic or pigments to her canvas or paper and then uses materials including Velcro and glass to strip color away. She considers this process to be a metaphor for the residues of destroyed cities.
Sora describes her artistic aim by saying, “As a survivor of multiple wars, and still fighting through the refugee and immigration system for my family, my work is a message of hope and beauty that arises even amongst war, destruction, tumult, and senseless discrimination. I think my works can assist others to never give up, no matter the explosions that occur, and see that life can regenerate in the detritus.”
River Bed, which is the largest painting in the gallery, was completed following Sora’s three-month residency in Berlin, a city she considers akin to her native Baghdad. As Sora explains, “I chose the city because of the similar narrative to where I was born, which was Baghdad, Iraq,” Sora said. “[These are] cities that are informed by destruction and bombing, and what interests me is how the cities are coping with that and reaching a point of reset.”
Sora’s works are an ideal addition to the collection of the Grinnell College Museum of Art, according to Daniel Strong, Associate Director and Curator of Exhibitions at GCMoA, who oversaw their acquisition by the College last summer. “Our collection features artists throughout history whose works interrogate systems of degradation, oppression, and injustice. Inherent in Vian Sora’s work is a call to resist these systems but also to transcend them, be that transcendence on an environmental, societal, or simply personal level. Despite destructive circumstances throughout her life that might have stopped her, she chooses to create. It’s the fundamental impulse of an artist.”
