East Tea Can

Medium: Seated figure, flying teapot, broken teaware, red rooster hot sauce - soviet illustrations - istikana
Year: 2023
Size: 135 x 115 cm
Edition: Unique artwork

About: 

There is power in the simplest mundane domestic objects, as they mark a moment in time and shape our identity. The overall shape of the artwork depicts an istikana -the khaleeji tea glass- a word that originated during the British colonization of Iraq, which means "East Tea Can."

The composition of elements portrays a dreamlike state and feeling, including a childhood recurring dream. The scribbled figure and teapot came from the artist's childhood drawing, representing her recurring dream of being seated at a table, not knowing where she was: Kuwait or Ukraine.

The living room in that dream transported her to a landscape in a particular Soviet children's book, where she looked around and saw elements of a Kuwaiti floor sufra, the cloth where food is served in Muslim culture, and, by extension, the meal itself. This liminal space translates the overlap of being physically in a place while mentally floating elsewhere, a state the artist, born in Ukraine to Kuwaiti parents and raised in Kuwait, has been experiencing her whole life.

'East Tea Can' is an artwork that embodies the cultural entanglements experienced by many while playfully revealing the inner child that keeps flourishing within the adult figure.