Cammie Staros b. 1983

Looking to the sculptural vessels of Classical Greece, Staros's hand-built ceramic works draw upon ancient techniques while incorporating contemporary industrial materials and processes. The resulting sculptures are grounded in historical forms yet remain distinctly of the present.

Mining imagery and artifacts from the Greco-Roman world, Staros examines recurring themes of the natural world, eroticism, violence, and conquest. Her vessels often assume anthropomorphic qualities, while incorporating motifs traditionally found on Greek figure vases. Through subtle formal interventions, historical iconography is transformed into a contemporary visual language.

Staros's engagement with classical antiquity extends beyond its aesthetic traditions to the role these objects have played in shaping the canon of Western art history. Her practice considers how meaning is constructed through material culture and visual representation, revealing history as something continually interpreted rather than fixed. By introducing her own symbolic vocabulary into this lineage, Staros situates antiquity within an ongoing dialogue between past and present.

Working in clay, a material that has carried cultural narratives across millennia, Staros considers how objects embody histories of desire, violence, ecology, and systems of display. Her sculptures challenge the authority of historical artifacts while affirming their continued capacity to generate new meanings.

Cammie Staros (b. 1983, Nashville, TN; Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received her BA from Brown University, Providence, in 2006 and her MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, in 2011. Staros has had solo exhibitions at Providence College Galleries, Providence, RI; The SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA; Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, Lefebvre & Fils, Paris, and Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles. The artist was included in the Craft Contemporary’s second clay biennial in Los Angeles. Staros’ work is featured in 100 Sculptors of Tomorrow, a survey of contemporary sculpture, authored by Kurt Beers and published by Thames & Hudson. She has also been featured in Artforum, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Hyperallergic, Autre Magazine, and the X–TRA art journal. She has been awarded residencies by the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Staros was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2020. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Seattle Art Museum, WA; The SCAD Museum of Art, GA; and the Hood Museum of Art, NH.