Y.Z. Kami

Y.Z. Kami explores the interplay between physical and spiritual, external and internal in his paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures.

Biography of Y.Z. Kami

Born in Tehran in 1956, Y.Z. Kami began painting in early childhood, sometimes alongside his mother, who briefly worked under the renowned Persian academic painter Ali Mohammad Heydarian. He was exposed to a blend of Western and Near Eastern influences, particularly the works of European masters and the verses of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Persian poets.

After completing high school and spending a year in Berkeley, California, Kami relocated to Paris. There, he pursued philosophy at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1981, and later continued his studies at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français.

In 1984, Kami relocated to New York, where he has since lived and worked. There he created "Self-Portrait as a Child" (1990), beginning his series of paintings, drawings, and photographic works inspired by a photograph of himself as a young boy in Iran. 

The 2006 exhibition, "Without Boundary" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, marked a shift as Kami started depicting subjects with closed or lowered eyes, emphasizing the entire face as a focal point. Works like "Dry Land" (1999–2004) juxtapose painted portraits with photographs of façades and buildings, where the weathered surfaces of the structures add depth to a sense of lived history.

Kami took part in the 52nd Biennale di Venezia in 2007 and showcased various paintings, including a set of portraits titled "In Jerusalem" (2005-2006). The artwork portrays multiple canvases featuring clerics representing the cultural contexts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The portraits are based on a photograph from The New York Times that captured a gathering aimed at prohibiting a gay pride festival.

Kami's work is included in prestigious collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and British Museum, London, among others. 

Y.Z. Kami's Art Style

In his large-scale portraits, Y.Z. Kami reenacts face-to-face meetings using the sfumato technique. He depicts family, friends, and strangers with their eyes either open or closed, looking straight ahead or down. These meditative images are painted in matte oil on linen, reminiscent of Byzantine frescoes and Fayum funerary portraits. They represent the unknown and the infinite in physical form and presence.

In his abstract works, the artist continues this interplay of surface and interior through forms inspired by architecture, geometry, poetry, and lately, hazy, dreamlike imagery.

In the "Endless Prayers" series, Persian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit poems, prayers, and verses are meticulously cut into rectangular fragments and arranged in mandala formations. The spiraling patterns echo the repetitive nature of worship.

"Endless Prayers" paved the way for the "Domes" series, which integrates elements of sacred architecture. These paintings, rendered in black, white, blue, or gold, showcase square or rectangular motifs arranged in concentric circles, evoking pulsating tessellated voids—a universal representation of the transition from darkness to light. Additionally, Kami has broadened his figurative repertoire to encompass depictions of hands, frequently portraying them with palms pressed together in prayer. This emphasizes not only the physical intricacies of this body part but also the profound symbolism associated with its gestures.  

His "Night Paintings" (2017–) are created using a single shade of indigo, a color often associated with the night, paired with various gradations of white. These canvases are filled with shimmering biomorphic patterns that transition between solid, liquid, and gaseous states, blurring the boundaries between the earthly and the sublime.