Vian Sora: Outerworlds

OCTOBER 10, 2025 – JANUARY 18, 2026

Born in Baghdad and now based in Louisville, artist Vian Sora (b. 1976) creates dazzlingly layered abstractions that channel the turbulence of history, memory, and the natural world. Outerworlds—her first solo museum exhibition in the United States—assembles major works from the past ten years, charting her transformation into one of today’s most distinctive voices in painting.

Sora’s practice emerges directly from lived experience. Having grown up amid the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she witnessed the devastation of her homeland firsthand. Forced to leave Iraq, she eventually resettled in Louisville, Kentucky, where her practice has flourished.

Her canvases are created through an intensive, bodily process: paint is splashed, sprayed, poured, and scraped across the surface, often layered fifty times or more. This physical engagement produces forms that appear to surge and dissolve, recalling the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the ruined architecture of Mesopotamia, and Iraq’s shifting deserts. The works register the traumas of war and displacement while also invoking cycles of erosion, renewal, and ecological change. At times they echo the upheavals of climate crisis—floods, droughts, and storms—while remaining tethered to the memory of ancient landscapes and civilizations.

In their vigor and density, Sora’s paintings give shape to chaos, embodying both rupture and resilience. They are at once reminders of a fragile present and affirmations of art’s power to transform destruction into possibility.

At the Speed, Outerworlds is installed in the 2016 North building and the original 1927 wing. By spanning the museum’s oldest and newest spaces, Sora’s work becomes a bridge across time, affirming that artists rooted in Louisville and shaped by migration are vital to the Speed’s identity.

This exhibition is co-organized by the Speed Art Museum, Asia Society Texas, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. It is curated by Tyler Blackwell, Curator of Contemporary Art, Speed Art Museum; Owen Duffy, Nancy C. Allen Curator and Director of Exhibitions, Asia Society Texas; and James Glisson, Chief Curator, Santa Barbara Museum of Art. A new monograph co-published by Inventory Press will also accompany the exhibition.

Vian Sora: Outerworlds is part of Current Speed, a series of contemporary art exhibitions that introduce the Kentuckiana community to new and emerging artists as well as celebrated mid-career artists previously underrecognized in the region. Current Speed exhibitions are open to the public and included with general museum admission. The series is initiated and organized by Tyler Blackwell, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Art Museum.

Lead support for this exhibition at the Speed Art Museum is generously provided by Lopa and Rishabh Mehrotra and Brooke and Matthew Barzun. Significant support is provided by Augusta Brown Holland, Stephen Reily and Emily Bingham, and the Great Meadows Foundation. 

Programming for Vian Sora: Outerworlds 

Exclusive Event: Studio Visit with Vian Sora
Wednesday, October 15, 6–8 pm
$100 per person, refreshments included

You are invited to an intimate studio visit with artist Vian Sora and curator Tyler Blackwell to learn more about her work and processes firsthand. Come to explore Vian Sora: Outerworlds at your own leisure, then join us in the artist’s studio on October 15. Space is limited for this exclusive event. Additional details will be provided upon registration. Register here

2026 Exhibition Season Sponsors

Cary Brown and Steven E. Epstein
Todd P. Lowe and Fran C. Ratterman
Debra and Ronald Murphy
Dr. Victoria Phillips and Travis Anderson
Sociable Weaver Foundation

Press Release & Press Images

Vian Sora: Outerworlds in the News

Vian Sora: Outerworlds on Exhibit at Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Noozhawk.com, 5.27.25