text BK

Bayan Kiwan (*1995 in Amman, Jordan, lives and works in New York, USA) is a Palestinian–Jordanian artist whose research and practice are driven by questions of place, memory, and the everyday as an inscrutable site of resistance. An extension of this, her paintings are explorations of women’s private sociality and intimacy. As such, her figurative works tell stories from her peer-group, stories of friendly gatherings, of interiors, of togetherness in a contemporary Genre painting style. Her experimentation with perspective leads her to represent female bodies in what might look like strange angles on large-scale canvases. In contrast, her Necks are a series of small expressive paintings which she produces daily. While they sprang from a reflection on both extreme dangers and desire, they highlight the fragility of that crucial link between head and body.