Domestic Compositions is a compelling solo exhibition by acclaimed Iranian-American artist Kamrooz Aram presented at Green Art Gallery, running through 10 January 2026. The show brings together painting, collage, sculpture, and installation into a single, sensitively calibrated environment that invites viewers to reconsider the relationships between art, culture, history, and space.
At the heart of the exhibition is a series of collages titled Variations on Turquoise Bowl (2025), where Aram repeats a photographic reproduction of a historic turquoise ceramic bowl across nested squares of colour. Drawing from his personal archive of books on Iranian art published before 1978, the artist isolates and extends specific colours into painted frames that outlast the image itself. This gesture subtly critiques colonial modes of representation and the dominance of Western art historical taxonomies. In doing so, the work nods to Homage to the Square by German-American artist Josef Albers, weaving formal concerns of colour theory with layered cultural and historical reference.
Beyond collage, Domestic Compositions unfolds across the gallery’s architecture. Sculpture-painting hybrids activate walls and floors, scrims and pedestals shape spatial rhythms, and exposed construction materials enter into dialogue with the art pieces on display. Through these relational structures of colour, memory, and time, the exhibition stages a vibrant encounter between modernist histories and non-Western aesthetic traditions, proposing forms of interdependence or kinship that animate the entire space.
About the artist
Kamrooz Aram (b. 1978, Shiraz, Iran), who lives and works in Brooklyn (NY, USA), earned a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD, USA) in 2001 and completed an MFA at Columbia University (New York, NY) in 2003.
Aram’s practice, which involves painting, collage, photography, and sculpture, interrogates the boundaries between high art and design. It addresses the hierarchical frameworks through which Western and Eastern artistic traditions have been historically interpreted. His works often merge painterly and sculptural elements, with exhibition design becoming a critical component of the artwork itself. By painting gallery walls or positioning decorative objects in front of his compositions, Aram disrupts the conventions of the white cube and questions its presumed neutrality.
Aram has presented his work internationally in many exhibitions, including Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to the 21st Centuries (Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy, 2023); Jameel Prize 5 (The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK, 2018); Ornament for Indifferent Architecture (solo) (Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, 2017); The Artist Project (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, 2016); and A Tale of Two Cities, Busan Biennale 2006 Contemporary Art Exhibition (Busan, Korea), among others.
Aram is a recipient of several prestigious awards, such as the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Fine Arts (2025), Carla Fendi Rome Prize Fellow (American Academy of Rome, Italy, 2024), and the Jameel Prize 5 (2018). His artworks are part of esteemed public collections, which include the Cincinnati Art Museum (UAS), the Sharjah Art Foundation, and the M+ Museum (Hong Kong, China), to name a few.
To learn more about Domestic Compositions, please go to the exhibition’s official web page.
In addition, you might be interested in visiting Motherhood: An Art and Photography Exhibition.
