Hayv Kahraman: ‘I was brainwashed into thinking anything Euro-American-centric is the ideal’

The Kurdish artist draws on Baghdad’s miniature tradition, self-portraiture, plant bacteria and neurosculpting for artworks that provoke a gut reactionIn 2006, the artist Hayv Kahraman moved to the US, then occupying her homeland, Iraq, and began painting a woman who has been a fixture of her work ever since. With parchment-pale skin, a swoosh of raven hair, scarlet lips and strong brows, this figure recalls the characters set against unadorned backgrounds in 12th-century Baghdad’s m