With an exhibition running through May 19 at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, artist Hayv Kahraman has expanded her repertoire. According to Ali Gass, the museum’s founding director, “The mark of a strong artist is often their ability to develop their practice in new directions while pulling the through lines of the work consistently.”
Along with the debut of a dozen large paintings, works on paper and a custom wallpaper, “Look Me in the Eyes” presents some firsts for Kahraman: the incorporation of a marbling technique, which is connected to her experience assimilating as an Iraqi refugee in Sweden; three sculptures, each standing about 8 feet tall and composed of painted bricks (with her trademark eyes); and an audio installation featuring her mother speaking after she was denied Swedish citizenship. With “constant tension between beauty and discomfort,” Gass says, the artist “deals with painful political issues, but she enables the viewer to find a way in through elements of visual delight or artistic exquisiteness.”
