Maryam Yousif (b. 1985 Baghdad, Iraq) lives and works in San Francisco, CA. Yousif’s practice is rooted in clay sculpture and demonstrates an ongoing engagement with Mesopotamian mythologies, histories and objects alongside modernist visual vocabularies and contemporary popular culture. Her distinctive sensibility is derived from sources such as Iraqi modernism and Bay Area Funk.
Yousif received her BA at the University of Windsor, Ontario in 2008 and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2017. Solo and two-person exhibitions include ICA San Francisco (2024); Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco (2024); The Pit, Los Angeles / Palm Springs (2023, 2021); David B. Smith, Denver (2022); and Andrew Rafacz, Chicago (2021); amongst others.
Yousif’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Manetti Shrem Museum at UC Davis (2024); GGLA, Los Angeles (2024); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2023); Museum of Art & Design, New York (2023); and Massey Klein Gallery, New York (2023); amongst others.
She received the Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship in 2024 and was a finalist for SFMOMA’s SECA award in 2022 and the Museum of Art and Design’s Burke Prize in 2021.
Her work is held by the collections of the Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY and the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO.
