Kamrooz Aram

Privacy, An Exhibition
The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, US


April 5 - August 13, 2022
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago

Kamrooz Aram: Privacy, An Exhibition presents a series of new works that use techniques of abstraction and installation to question false oppositions between painting and sculpture, foreground and background, or public and private space. Aram starts his canvases by mapping their structure with a grid. He then develops botanical motifs inspired by decorative arts like carpets, tiles, or ceramics in response to the grid. In one work, actual ceramic vessels are juxtaposed with painting inside a glassed-in shelf as might be found in a museum, thus turning a painting into a sculpture or a display.

Aram’s artworks are placed strategically in the space in combination with a variety of decorative elements—drapery, furniture, and wall painting—to draw attention to the ways in which images and objects are prioritized depending upon their relation to each other. Monochrome fields of paint appear on the walls of the gallery, as well as part of individual works, thus leveling the differences between backdrop and fine art. Similarly, the pattern from a household object shifts scale within a mural-sized oil painting. Such relationships remain in flux within the galleries, where the status of each object is never certain.

Emergent Arabesque, 2021
oil, oil crayon and pencil on linen
96 x 46 in each
244 x 117 cm each
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
Nocturne 4 (Reflective Nocturne), 2021
oil, oil crayon and pencil on linen
96 x 56 in
244 x 142 cm
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
Arabesque Composition for a Distant Garden, 2021
oil, oil crayon and pencil on linen
96 x 148 in
244 x 376 cm
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
Red Window, 2021-2022
oil, oil crayon and pencil on linen
67.5 x 57 in
171.5 x 145 cm
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
Privacy Screen for Public Architecture, 2022
oil, oil crayon and pencil on linen
96.5 x 158.5 x 1 in
245 x 403 x 3 cm
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago
installation view, Privacy, An Exhibition, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago