Kamrooz Aram: Lapis Intervention

Header image credit:

Kamrooz Aram (b. 1978, Shiraz, Iran)

Untitled (Arabesque Composition in Lapis Lazuli), 2021

Lapis lazuli oil paint and pencil on linen

Pejman Family Collection

In this co-curated gallery intervention, artist Kamrooz Aram challenges the Eurocentric values that have shaped art history and museum displays.

For his Arabesque series, Aram reimagines the scrolling vegetal designs, known in Arabic as islimi, that enhance many works of Islamic art. Generations of art historians dismissed such “arabesque” motifs as ornamental. In response, Aram reworks and expands the islimi design to create abstract fields of colour and form in his paintings. He often pairs these canvases with historical Islamic ceramics to spark reflection on how museums elevate modernist abstraction over ornament.