The artist Kamrooz Aram at the front door to his Academy studio
Photography by Claudia Gori
The Brooklyn-based artist Kamrooz Aram is the 2024 Carla Fendi Rome Prize Fellow. His Rome Prize project at the Academy, Renegotiating Ornament, emphasizes research in architectural and decorative painting traditions on the Italian peninsula, from fresco to faux marble, along with decorative practices using mosaics, terrazzo, marble, and other materials. Some of these traditions were influenced by Islamic art and architecture, and Aram is interested in how this influence disrupts a Eurocentric understanding of the art-historical canon.