Due to her origin and gender she has been well suited around the world in exhibitions in women in Arab world or "contemporary approaches to Islamic artistic traditions"[11] Themes The theme of violence in her work maybe due to her experiences with war and being a refugee.
[13] Her works additionally covers themes of gender and body politics, migration, and the diaspora.
[12] Other techniques she uses includes Chinese ink painting, Japanese woodblocks and Russian nestling dolls.
Examples of her pieces: War-aq, the Arabic word for playing cards, is a very personal group of her works.
This work relates to her personal experience of attending the music and ballet school in central Baghdad.
Migrant 3 is a self portrait of herself cutting off her tongue to represent the loss of language and communication through her life experiences.
Re-Weaving Migrant Inscriptions (2017) is a series of paintings that recalls the traditional Iraqi woven fan, or mahaffa, by cutting and weaving sections of her oil-painted self portraits, constructing a narrative of forced exile, displacement and cultural assimilation.
[18] This work is very direct, it breaks the mastering gaze and challenges the passive, domesticated and traditional place of women.
Kahraman’s recent solo exhibitions include Gut Feelings, The Mosaic Rooms, London (2022);[19][20][21] Touch of Otherness, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah (2022);[22][23] Not Quite Human: Second Iteration, Pilar Corrias, London (2020);[24][25] To the Land of the Waqwaq, Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design, Honolulu, HI (2019);[26][27] Displaced Choreographies, De La Warr Pavilion, Sussex, UK (2019);[28] Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, California (2018);[29][30] and Hayv Kahraman: Acts of Reparation, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri (2017).