Bayan Kiwan

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Angela He • Bayan Kiwan • Caroline Sinders • Death, Sex & Money • Kaho Abe • Katia Repina • Lam Thuy Vo • Lauren Lee McCarthy • Mickalene Thomas • Mimi Ọnụọha • Tamiko Thiel • Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne • The Cut

This Fracture Is Familiar

Four oil paintings of necks- Bayan Kiwan

The spring has fractured the body. I’ve come to know loved ones in parts, in slices. Sometimes in corporeal proximity. Sometimes: Impossible. This chaos and vulnerability is not new. When has intimacy not been absurd? We are reduced to our necks. Now, more than ever. Or magnified into them. Like the land, untouched, seen only through screens. In the absence of place, the mind decorates an abundance of spaces with fleeting warmth. Scarce, if beautiful, furniture dispersed. At a distance from the spring, we begin to unbox, to feel the wind’s fingers on our necks. How do we begin to furnish the future? A return to normal months ago (pre-pandemic?) years ago (pre Libya?) or a century ago (pre-occupation?).

– Bayan Kiwan

A dark short curly hair woman in a purple floral dress sits in a room corner.

Bayan Kiwan  is a Palestinian-Jordanian multidisciplinary artist whose work mostly explores female sociality and intimacy. Predominantly a painter, she seeks unaccounted for possibilities of relation and desire within preexisting square codes. Her work has been showcased as part of several group shows and residencies in Amman, Abu Dhabi, Berlin, and New York. Kiwan holds a BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Jordan, and is currently an MA candidate at NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She also makes a mean cup of tea.

Visit her website here.