Kamrooz Aram is the subject of multiple major exhibitions in early 2026, including a solo show at Alexander Gray Associates in New York, a presentation at Nature Morte in Mumbai for Mumbai Art Week, and a significant inclusion in the 2026 Whitney Biennial. The artist, known for his work with the grid, uses painting to explore the connections between Western modernist abstraction and non-Western decorative traditions, particularly from Western Asia.
Aram's work critically examines and loosens the rigid boundaries of the grid, challenging the Western modernist narrative that sought to distance abstraction from decoration. By highlighting how modernists like Matisse borrowed from Islamic decorative arts, his practice reveals the intertwined histories of these visual cultures and critiques the artificial binary that has historically positioned them as oppositional forces.