Artist Y.Z. Kami: The Human Face Is Beautiful

Why It Matters

Kami’s work shows how timeless portrait painting can deepen cultural dialogue and offer collectors a slower, more reflective alternative to the fleeting digital image economy.

Key Takeaways

• Faces captivate Y.Z. Kami; he studies them in NYC subways
• Painting is instinctual for Kami, like breathing or eating
• New series reinterprets ancient Fayum portraits with his unique surface
• He emphasizes “skin” of canvas, inventing personal texture across series
• Painting’s slow, timeless process counters rapid digital image culture

Summary

In a candid interview, Iranian‑born painter Y.Z. Kami explains why the human face dominates his artistic life, describing how he spends hours watching strangers on New York subways to absorb their subtle expressions.

Kami traces his devotion to painting back to childhood oil‑painting sessions with his mother, noting that once he lifts a brush the act becomes automatic, a subconscious flow that feels as essential as breathing. He reveals his latest project: a series of portraits inspired by 2,000‑year‑old Fayum mummy portraits, re‑imagined with his signature dry, textured "skin" of canvas that unifies his figurative, dome, and night‑painting bodies of work.

He cites specific examples—a Berlin Fayum portrait, a Metropolitan Museum reference, and a portrait of New Yorker Phong Bui—to illustrate how memory, geography, and historical artifacts converge in his studio, whether in France’s Mediterranean light or a New York winter. A politically charged piece on Jerusalem’s anti‑gay parade demonstrates his belief that art inevitably reflects societal tensions.

Kami argues that painting’s deliberate, time‑intensive process offers a counterpoint to the instantaneity of photography and social‑media selfies, granting viewers a lingering, almost meditative encounter with the subject’s soul. This perspective underscores the enduring market and cultural relevance of portraiture that bridges ancient heritage with contemporary commentary.

Original Description

”Nothing fascinates me as much.” We visited Iranian painter Y.Z. Kami in his New York studio and entered a world of fascinating portraits and poetic softness.

”Each person is unique. Each person, to my eyes as a painter, is a fascinating subject for a painting. An extraordinary subject for a painting and a work of art. And I find that human face is beautiful. I see beauty in it.”

Y.Z. Kami was born in Tehran in 1956. He painted from early childhood, sometimes with his mother, who was an artist, and was exposed to both Western and Near Eastern influences, particularly the paintings of the European masters and the verses of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Persian poets. Following high school, and after a year spent in Berkeley, California, he moved to Paris. There he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne—from which he graduated in 1981—and subsequently at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français. In 1984, Kami moved to New York, where he continues to live and work. There, he started work on Self-Portrait as a Child (1990), which marks the beginning of a series of paintings, drawings, and photographic works based on a picture of himself as a boy in Iran. Over the subsequent decade he produced multipart works, including Untitled (18 Portraits) (1994–95), and Untitled (16 Portraits) (1997–98). The latter is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. A 2006 exhibition, Without Boundary at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, saw Kami starting to paint his subjects with their eyes closed or lowered, making the entire surface of the face a focal point. Other works, such as Dry Land (1999–2004), juxtapose painted portraits with photographic images of façades and buildings, the structures’ weathered surfaces underscoring a sense of lived history.

In 2007, Kami participated in the 52nd Biennale di Venezia, exhibiting several paintings including a group of portraits titled In Jerusalem (2005–06). In this work, the subjects’ cultural context is clear; the multiple canvases depict clerics representing Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and were based on a New York Times photograph of a gathering aimed at banning a gay pride festival in Jerusalem (“Intolerance,” Kami recalls, “was something that they all agreed upon and shared”). Kami’s work is in the collections of 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. Kami’s solo exhibitions include The Watchful Portraits of Y.Z. Kami, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2003); 52nd Biennale di Venezia (2007); Perspectives: Y.Z. Kami, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (2008); Endless Prayers, Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London (2008–09); Beyond Silence, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (2009–10); and Endless Prayers, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2016–17). De forma silenciosa/In a Silent Way, a midcareer survey of Kami’s work, was presented by Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain in 2022–23. Light, Gaze, Presence was organized across four locations in Florence, Italy, in 2023: Museo Novecento, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, Museo degli Innocenti, and Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte.

Y.Z. Kami was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in his home and studio in New York. The conversation took place in March 2026.

Camera: Simon Weyhe

Edited by: Jarl Therkelsen Kaldan

Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026

Music via Upright:

Boom Room by Bob Holroyd and Simon Painter

The Waltz Of Oblivion by Laurent Dury

Kind Of Escape by Rasmus Elk Olsen

Stolen Moments by Laurent Dury

Morning Flow by Goodluck Casper Bach Hegstrup, C.S. Sørensen and Frederik Thybo

Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond.

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