Maryam Yousif transforms clay into figures that merge two distinct visual worlds. Drawing on the twentieth-century funk art movement of the Bay Area alongside the imagery of her birth country, the Iraqi-American ceramicist builds sculptures that carry ancient weight with a playful, contemporary hand. Born in Baghdad and now based in San Francisco, she channels this dual heritage into her signature body of work, dressing elegant female forms in reliefs of flowers, landscapes, and repeating patterns that read as both ornament and armor.
Her process is rooted in historical research as much as material technique. Yousif studies Mesopotamian mythologies, artifacts, and burial objects, then translates that research into new forms shaped by hand-built and press-molded clay, glazed in saturated color palettes. This method allows her to compress centuries into a single object, letting ancient symbolism sit comfortably beside modern silhouettes and fashion references. The artist has described how following research “rabbit holes,” from supernatural beings to queens and their gravesites, keeps her tied to a homeland she left as a child, even as she works an ocean away from it.
That layered approach has earned Yousif institutional recognition well beyond gallery walls. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, was a finalist for the Museum of Arts and Design’s Burke Prize, and received the Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship Grant. Her pieces now sit in the public collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, the Denver Art Museum, the Barjeel Art Foundation, and the Crocker Museum of Art. Upcoming presentations include a solo show with Rebecca Camacho Presents and a commissioned piece for the Getty Villa’s exhibition on ancient queenship, extending her ongoing dialogue between Mesopotamian history and present-day identity.
More info: Website (h/t: Colossal)
