Sharif Farrag’s ceramics draw from a well of personal experience. Replete with bold iconography, Farrag consistently pushes the expressive potential of clay and painterly glazes to render intricate and cartoonishly monstrous characters. The artist’s hybrid forms touch on the second-generation American experience, forming prismatic refractions of his Syrian-Egyptian parentage, his San Fernando Valley upbringing, skater culture, and graffiti. His densely decorated artworks also reference art historical tropes, as with his depictions of gardens. Exposing his ceramics to invariably high temperatures, Farrag tests the integrity of the material to produce fiery alchemies of melted and bleached color. Across the artist’s anthropomorphized scenes, flowers sprout faces, and clocks become animated. Meanwhile, recurring images of alter egos offer Farrag an outlet for his angels and demons.

Sharif Farrag was born in 1993 in Reseda, CA, and lives in Los Angeles, CA. He earned his MFA from the University of California in Los Angeles, CA (2023) and his BFA from the University of Southern California, Roski School of Art and Design, in Los Angeles, CA (2018).

Farrag has mounted solo exhibitions at François Ghebaly in Los Angeles, CA (2020); In Lieu in Los Angeles, CA (2020); The Pit in Los Angeles, CA (2018); and 356 Mission in Los Angeles, CA (2017). His upcoming exhibitions include a show at the Rubell Museum in Miami, FL.

The artist’s work was included in Funk You Too!: Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, NY (2023), and Clay Pop Los Angeles curated by Alia Williams at Deitch Projects in Los Angeles, CA (2021).

Farrag was an artist in residence at California State University’s Long Beach’s Center for Contemporary Ceramics (2018-2020) and was awarded a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019).