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Positively Kentuckiana: Iraqi artist living in Louisville blends cultures on canvas

View a photo slide show.

Louisville, Ky. (WHAS11) - Hers has been a life of two worlds coming together on canvas; her life in Louisville and her life in Iraq.
 

This artist has seen war and murder, so how is her story part of our Positively Kentuckiana?
 

As WHAS11's Rachel Platt found out, it's all about hope.
 

Every picture tells a story and there are so many stories being told by artist Vian Sora.
 

She is an Iraqi artist who now calls Louisville home.
 

Her life then and her life now come together on canvas.
 

One painting called ‘Between Two Worlds’ is the featured piece in an upcoming exhibition.
 

It is something of a self portrait; her inner and outer world with roots in both places, a blending of east and west.
 

She married a Louisville attorney who worked with Iraqi artists.  It is a marriage that would once again blend two worlds.
 

“I don't want to leave my identity…I talk English here but Arabic to my family,” she says.
 

It is a family that's endured torture and murder.
 

She showed WHAS11’s Rachel Platt articles and pictures of her uncle, the Deputy Health Minister who was kidnapped in 2006 and later murdered for exposing wrongdoing.
 

The work simply entitled ‘Kidnapped’ was inspired by him.
 

“Man with dagger represents the 16 men who attacked,” says Sora.
 

The painting pays homage to a man she loved and respected; a dark time and a dark painting.
 

But despite the ravages of war, her paintings also reflect beauty both in Iraq and Louisville.
 

Later this month you'll be able to see this artwork for yourself.
 

Vian's paintings have been shown throughout the world but this will be the first time in Kentuckiana.
 

It’s a new life in a new place with her artwork providing a bridge to her past.
 

“When you survive every day, life becomes more meaningful and beautiful and you enjoy the small things,” she says.
 

Vian Sora an artist who has seen the dark but prefers to paint hope.
 

“This is my way to contribute to beauty and color,” she says.
 

If you would like to see ‘Between Two Worlds,’ her work will be on display from April 2nd until May 14th.
 

The exhibit is at the Green Building at 731 east Market Street.
 

If you have someone who fits the bill for Positively Kentuckiana we want to hear from you.

Bristles with Energy
Part artist, part performer, painter Steve Keene is not one to linger over a blank canvas

Steve Keene

Steve Keene says his art is like a CD — and this has nothing to do with his designing cover art for some of the world's hippest indie rock bands. It's disposable and forgettable or pleasing and memorable, depending on who owns the wall where the piece hangs.

Keene, a Brooklynite, creates scores — and sometimes hundreds — of pieces at single settings, swiftly stroking vibrant paint onto 16-by-20-inch planks to create whimsical images of houses, the Beatles and American presidents. Keene sells the paintings for no more than $14, plus shipping — roughly the price of a CD — through stevekeene.com. Last month, Keene visited Louisville for 10 days to paint — as much performance as it is production — and show his work at the Green Building on East Market Street downtown. He's departed now to his Brooklyn studio, but the exhibition remains open until May 29. We caught up to chat about his time here.

How did your time in Louisville go?

I sent down about 1,200 paintings and I painted about 600 more when I was there last month. It's a performance, what I do. It's sort of like a stress test for me, because when you do art it's supposed to be really special and you're supposed to work on it really hard and you're not supposed to have that many interruptions and it's supposed to be really good. And when I do it, it's like I'm out on the street, practically. I paint in front of people; people come check out what I do. It's kind of a test to see if I can survive. The best part of it was they were opening up this restaurant (732 Social) in the front of the Green Building. I've always worked in restaurants, and I think of myself as making something for people to eat, for people to consume. It was fun to watch the restaurant workers breaking their backs doing the restaurant work, and I'm breaking my back doing my paintings. So I felt a complete kinship in the process of putting on a performance and making a product that few hundred people come and buy and they can buy.

Can you elaborate on your views about your art being like CDs?

That's about it. I don't really have any fancy ideas about it. I just think it's a thing that keeps people entertained for a few minutes. My paintings are cheap enough that if you don't like it, you can just stick it outside your apartment and let somebody else pick it up. It's cheap. It's entertainment. If you don't like it, you can get rid of it.

How did your art become entangled with indie rock? You've designed album covers for The Apples in Stereo, Silver Jews?

Pavement.

Right...

It's their love of me. (Laughs.) People see that what I do is unusual. To me it's just a wacked-out job that I invented for myself. When it's at its best, I think it's refreshing and inspiring to see somebody work so hard at something. I take it very seriously, what I do, but I treat it as if it's a game.

Tell me about your painting process.

I'll do 50 or 100. It just depends. I might do 20 different ones, 20 apiece. Or I might do 100 of the same thing. It doesn't really matter. I don't really see them as paintings; I see them like doing Sudoku or whatever that number game is called.

You must struggle to think of ideas for paintings, doing so many different concepts each day.

I try not to think of it in terms of getting ideas. I'll just pick up on something, and I'll do it. The fewer ideas I have, the better it is, the more satisfying the whole process is. When you have too many ideas, it just throws up too many roadblocks to the process. It's really just about the process. It's about the activity of doing so much.

Many of your paintings feature musicians — there are several Beatles pieces, plus Daniel Johnston, Devo.

Music is accessible for people. It's a stepping-stone. I enjoy music, but I also enjoy things that most people who buy my art wouldn't care about. I've been doing this almost 20 years, so I'm aware of what people enjoy. I'm a popular artist, so I don't want to just do stuff that's all about my ideas and what's inside of me. I want it to be accessible to everybody. To me, it's not about whether it's a painting of the Beatles or something nobody else knows about, I want to make something that's supposed to go as quickly as possible into the world and then take on a part of somebody else's life.

How do you think art snobs look at your work?

I don't really have anything to say about that. It's like food. There are 4,000 different kinds of restaurants on the East Coast, and that's the way you have to think about it. It's nourishing to some smart people and it's repulsive to some smart people, it's fantastic to some dumb people and it's horrible to some dumb people.