Kamrooz Aram

Kamrooz Aram (Persian: کامروز آرام; b.1978 in Shiraz, Iran) is a contemporary artist whose diverse artistic practice engages the complicated relationship between traditional non-Western art and Western Modernism. Through a variety of forms including painting, collage, drawing and installation, Aram has found the potential for image-making to function critically in its use as a tool for a certain renegotiation of history. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Life and career

Kamrooz Aram received a B.F.A. in 2001 from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Aram received his Master's degree in Fine Arts from Columbia University in 2003.

Solo and two-person exhibitions include Ornament for Indifferent Architecture (2017) at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium; Recollections for a Room (2016–2017) and Unstable Paintings for Anxious Interiors at Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2016; 2014); he has also been awarded grants from Art Matters (2014), the New York Foundation for the Arts (2004) and the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program (2001). His work has been featured and reviewed widely in publications such as Art in America, Artforum.com, The New York Times, Asian Art Newspaper, The Village Voice and the arts and culture segment on BBC Persian: Tamasha.

Aram's work can be found in public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio; Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas; and M+, Hong Kong.

Kamrooz Aram's artwork is featured in the eight second edition of Whitney Biennial in 2026.

On the eighty-two edition of Whitney Biennial 2026, one of his artworks, "Luster on the Blue Gaze" shows the artwork describing it as a piece of artwork as a painting and a book cover at the same time playing double duty.