Floodgates, 2021

Vian Sora, (Born 1947, Iraqi-American)

 

Acrylic on canvas, (66" x 84") 

 

A gift to Kentucky Performing Arts from Mr. Henry Heuser

 

Created during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vian Sora’s Floodgates reflects a moment when global crisis stirred memories of war, displacement, and survival from her life in Iraq. Visually and emotionally, Floodgates draws from water, weather, nature, and movement. Sora connects the work to walks through Cherokee Park during the pandemic, to the Ohio River, and to the changing atmosphere she observes from her Louisville studio. She describes her paintings as weather systems that gather energy, shift, collide, and slowly reveal themselves.  Its gold and bronze surfaces also evoke ancient Mesopotamian art, linking Sora’s present life in Kentucky to the visual languages and histories of the place where she was born.

 

Sora’s journey to becoming an artist began early in Baghdad, where she grew up in a family surrounded by art and artists.  By age six, she knew she wanted to be a painter, though she chose not to attend art school, believing that the artistic community around her offered a richer education than a formal program could provide. Instead, she studied computer engineering in one of Baghdad’s early artificial intelligence programs, a path that sharpened the analytical side of her mind while intensifying her need for the creative act of painting. She continued making work throughout college and later built an international career.  In 2009, Sora moved to Louisville with her husband, where she lives and works today.

 

The trauma of war, the experience of creating, and Sora’s belief that art can transform challenge into possibility are brought together in Floodgates.  At its heart, Floodgates is a painting about survival and renewal, finding beauty inside uncertainty, and insisting on hope even after profound loss.

This piece is temporarily off premises