Kamrooz Aram
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Biography
Kamrooz Aram (b. 1978) has built his practice on dismantling the divide between ornament and fine art, renegotiating the art historical hierarchies that privilege Western forms of abstraction above others. His paintings and sculptures do not simply cross categories; they probe the structures that enforce them. Born in Shiraz, Iran, Aram emigrated to the United States in the 1980s, where he found himself forced to come to terms with a multitude of identities imposed upon him. These experiences left a lasting mark. Categories, he discovered, do not merely describe identity—they invent it.This recognition drives his work, which asserts that non-Western ornamental traditions carry the same intellectual weight and conceptual rigor Western art history has long reserved for itself.
Aram’s paintings are acts of translation. Intricate geometries slip into fields of color, while brushstrokes accumulate in thin layers, revealing glimpses of what lies beneath. Aram speaks of pursuing contemporary art’s “taboo subjects” like emotion and spiritual presence, and in his work, they appear not as sentiment, but as structure. Calligraphic forms reverberate against the cool authority of Minimalist grids; floral arabesque patterns breathe new life into Color Field painting. These juxtapositions are not acts of fusion, so much as acts of recognition, acknowledging what has always been visible.
Aram’s influences are as diverse as his artistic strategies. Henri Matisse’s embrace of pattern, Ellsworth Kelly’s geometric clarity, and Cy Twombly’s gestural abandon all resonate in his practice. Most revealing is Le Corbusier—modernism’s supposed ascetic—whose architecture, despite its rhetoric of purity, cannot entirely suppress its embrace of ornament. For Aram, this contradiction lays bare how words like “decorative” are never neutral; they are instruments of hierarchy.
Aram’s sculptures extend this critique into three dimensions, arranging ceramic objects on painted plinths that echo museum displays. These installations engage with institutions from within, showing how context confers the status of “art” and revealing the fragile systems behind such designations. As Aram explains, “I hope to renegotiate the terms in which art history has been written—the Eurocentric hierarchy that places certain types of painting in the category of fine art while others are relegated to the minor arts.”
At the center of Aram’s practice lies a paradox he captures with poetic clarity in his writing: “It occurs to me that I am Arabesque. It occurs to me that there is no such thing as the Arabesque.” His work inhabits the charged space between being and non-being, tradition and invention, visibility and erasure. Rather than resolving these contradictions, Aram leaves them; it is in their friction—in the failure of old certainties—that new ways of seeing begin to emerge.
Aram’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including Kamrooz Aram: Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, IL (2022); Lives of Forms: Kamrooz Aram and Iman Issa at Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt, Belgium (2021); FOCUS: Kamrooz Aram, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX (2018); Kamrooz Aram: Ancient Blue Ornament, Atlanta Contemporary, GA (2018); and Kamrooz Aram: Ornament for Indifferent Architecture, Museum Dhondt Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium (2017). His work has been featured in significant group exhibitions, including Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries at Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2023-2024) and Desorientalismos at Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2020)Aram's work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; M+ Museum, Hong Kong, China; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX; Cincinnati Art Museum, OH; Portland Museum of Art, ME; and Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates, among others. He is the recipient of multiple prestigious awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2025); the Carla Fendi Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (2024); and the Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014). He is also represented by Green Art Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Aram lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
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Practices
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Painting
Aram's paintings are sites of negotiation, where ornamental strategies meet abstraction’s diverse vocabularies. Often beginning with gridded structures, each work builds through a process of layering and revision, retrieving visual... -
Sculpture
Aram’s sculptures extend his painterly investigations into three dimensions, creating objects that hover between artwork and display. Painted pedestals function simultaneously as sculptures and supports, their surfaces treated with the... -
Collage
Aram’s collages take pages from art-historical publications as both material and subject, embedding reproductions of ceramics, architectural fragments, and ornamental motifs into painted compositions. These works make his process tangible,... -
Works on Paper
Aram’s works on paper reveal his process with particular clarity, balancing structure and immediacy. Many begin with careful grid frameworks that anchor the page, while subsequent marks develop in direct...
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Other Exhibitions
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Kamrooz Aram: Privacy, An Exhibition
The Arts Club of Chicago April 5 - August 13, 2022Kamrooz Aram's solo show Kamrooz Aram: Privacy, An Exhibiton at The Arts Club of Chicago, IL. The institution's press release follows: Kamrooz Aram: Privacy, An Exhibition presents a series of... -
Lives of Forms: Kamrooz Aram and Iman Issa
Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture May 1 - August 1, 2021Kamrooz Aram's two-person exhibition Lives of Forms at the Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, Hasselt, Belgium. The institution's press release follows: Z33 presents the first two-person exhibition... -
Kamrooz Aram: An Object, A Gesture, A Décor
The FLAG Art Foundation October 27, 2018 - January 19, 2019Kamrooz Aram's solo exhibition An Object, A Gesture, A Décor , at The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY. The institution's press release follows: Kamrooz Aram: An Object, A Gesture,... -
FOCUS: Kamrooz Aram
Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth March 31 - June 17, 2018Kamrooz Aram's solo exhibition FOCUS: Kamrooz Aram at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX. The institution's press release follows: Spanning painting, sculpture, collage, and installation, Kamrooz Aram's work... -
Kamrooz Aram: Ornament for Indifferent Architecture
Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens February 5 - April 9, 2017Kamrooz Aram's solo art show Kamrooz Aram: Ornament for Indifferent Architecture at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium. The institution's press release follows: Ornament for Indifferent Architecture is the first European museum... -
Kamrooz Aram: Generation after Generation, Revolution after Revelation
LAXART January 29 - March 20, 2010Kamrooz Aram's solo exhibition Kamrooz Aram: Generation after Generation, Revolution after Revelation at LAXART, Los Angeles. The institution's press release follows: LA> < ART is pleased to present the first...
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Public Collections
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Art Jameel Collection, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Art Program of the Cleveland Clinic, OH
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio
Deutsche Bank Collection
The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
M+ Museum, Hong Kong
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX
Portland Museum of Art, ME
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates -
Videos
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News / Events
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Kamrooz Aram
Precious: The Value of Ornament at the Portland Museum of Art March 13–September 26, 2026Kamrooz Aram is included in the group exhibition Precious: The Value of Abstraction at the Portland Museum of Art, ME, on view from March 13–September 26, 2026.Read more -
Kamrooz Aram
Painting Energy: The Alex Katz Collection at the Portland Museum of Art May 23–September 14, 2025Kamrooz Aram is included in the group exhibition Painting Energy: The Alex Katz Collection at the Portland Museum of Art, ME, on view from May 23–September 14, 2025.Read more -
Kamrooz Aram
Award Announcement for 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship (Fine Arts) April 15, 2025Kamrooz Aram awarded with a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in Fine Arts.Read more
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Articles / Reviews
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Guggenheim Announces 2025 Fellowship Recipients
ArtforumApril 15, 2025 The Guggenheim Foundation today named the 198 recipients of its 2025 fellowships. Those recognized with the honor, considered one of... -
American Academy In Rome Announces 2023-24 Winners Of The Rome Prize
ForbesApril 24, 2023 The latest winners of the highly prestigious Rome Prize were announced today by the American Academy in Rome (AAR). The... -
In Conversation: Kamrooz Aram with William Corwin
Brooklyn RailNovember 11, 2022 During our conversation at the Peter Blum Gallery, Iranian-American artist Kamrooz Aram joked, “When you're identified as an Arab long... -
ARTSEEN: Kamrooz Aram: Elusive Ornament
Brooklyn RailNovember 1, 2022 Through painting, and more recently, sculpture and collage, Kamrooz Aram’s practice explores the classification and hierarchies of art history. Grounded... -
A Public Exploration of Privacy
The Provincetown IndependentMay 11, 2022 Iran and Wellfleet are worlds apart, yet the painter Kamrooz Aram managed to find memories of his native country in... -
Kamrooz Aram Breaks Down the Divide Between Decorative Art and Painting in Chicago Show
ARTnewsApril 7, 2022 When he is in the midst of planning a new exhibition, Brooklyn-based artist Kamrooz Aram aims to respond to the... -
Critics' Picks: Paris: Kamrooz Aram
ArtfoumSeptember 10, 2021 “Un objet, un geste” (An object, a gesture,) Kamrooz Aram’s first solo exhibition in France, calls into question critical hierarchies... -
Kamrooz Aram and Iman Issa's "Lives of Forms"
e-fluxMay 18, 2021 The title of Kamrooz Aram and Iman Issa’s “Lives of Forms,” and the work included in it, is not inspired... -
Kamrooz Aram’s “Focus”
ArtAsiaPacificJune 5, 2018 Blurring the boundary between traditional non-Western art and Western Modernism, Iranian-American artist Kamrooz Aram mixes representational objects and imagery with... -
Critics' Picks: Fort Worth: Kamrooz Aram
ArtforumMay 21, 2018 Borges warned, “a book that does not contain its counter-book is considered incomplete.” The same could be argued for painting,... -
Kamrooz Aram at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
GlasstireApril 23, 2018 I worked as a gallery attendant at Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum back in 2005 when the exhibition Palace and... -
Reviews: Kamrooz Aram Delivers Institutional Critique at Atlanta Contemporary
BURNAWAYMarch 22, 2018 Institutional critique looms large over contemporary art. In a moment when power is being held to account and representation matters,... -
Interviews: Kamrooz Aram
ArtforumJanuary 3, 2017 Kamrooz Aram is a Brooklyn-based artist whose works often challenge a modernist disdain for decoration, ornamentation, and patterning. His current... -
Critics' Pick: Dubai: Kamrooz Aram
ArtforumApril 23, 2014 For his first solo show in Dubai, painter Kamrooz Aram has taken his ongoing interest in erasure up a notch.... -
Abraaj Group Announces Five Art Prize Winners
ObserverJune 11, 2013 The Abraaj Group Art Prize, which highlights artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, has announced this... -
"Brute Ornament"
ArtforumApril 1, 2012 Curated by Murtaza Vali, this exhibition of recent works by Kamrooz Aram and Seher Shah could easily be mistaken for... -
East in the Eye of This Beholder
The New York TimesMarch 20, 2009 “I’m interested in what makes something Eastern, what makes something exotic,” the painter Kamrooz Aram says. His curiosity is part... -
Uneasy Delights
Art in AmericaFebruary 23, 2009 Velocity and visual amplitude typify this artist’s canvases, as if he were fixing as many elements of a rapidly mutating...
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