Vian Sora

Vian Sora (b. 1976, Baghdad, Iraq) has lived and worked in Louisville, Kentucky since 2009. She received a BS from Al Mansour University in Baghdad, Iraq in 2000 and studied printmaking at the Istanbul Museum of Graphic Art (IMOGA) in Istanbul, Turkey in 2007. 

Sora’s paintings are deeply informed by her life, infused with emotional tension, and centered on confronting themes of destruction and decay. She challenges the boundaries of life through intentional color contrasts within abstract landscapes. Her work fuses personal experiences with elements of Iraqi history, cultural identity, and painterly abstraction. While largely abstract, Sora’s paintings evoke figures and places - ranging from gardens to war zones - depicting landscapes of lush fertility intertwined with detritus, and exploring the cyclical nature of life and death.

Sora’s work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH; Sharjah Biennale, Sharjah, UAE; IMOGA, Istanbul, Turkey; as well as the KMAC Triennial, Louisville, KY; Grinnell College Museum of Art; among others. Commencing in 2025, Sora will have a travelling mid-career survey exhibition, Vian Sora: Outerworlds, at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (June 2025); Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY (October 2026); and Asia Society Texas, Houston, TX (April 2026).

Sora's work is included in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; KMAC Museum, Louisville, KY; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Grinnell College Museum of Art; Ministry of Culture Contemporary Collection, Baghdad, Iraq; the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; Fidelity Art Collection, Boston, MA; and the Shah Garg Foundation Collection, New York, NY; as well as numerous private collections.