Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Cameron Clayborn

Cameron Clayborn

Memphis, Tennessee

A roughly oval sculptural form hangs on a white gallery wall. The plum-purple surface is wrinkled and deeply textured around a triangular, boulder-like shape near the center.

Granny (Big Shot, Jessie)

2023

This installation piece is made up of two vase-like forms sitting on tall stools next to a taller, flame-shaped form. These are clustered on the far side of a black screen held in place on a projector frame. A black cord passes from the trio and through a hole in the screen to a fourth, club-shaped form, which sits a short distance away, closer to us.

family portrait (with you, against you, away from you)

2023

Three roughly caterpillar-like shapes stand connected to each other by ropes. Each tea-rose-pink shape tapers at both ends, and some of the tips of the forms are darker dusky rose. Emerging from belly-button-like sites, two ropes connect the outermost forms, and a second set of ropes connects the central form and the rightmost.

double dutch

2022

This free-standing, sculptural piece stands like a monolith against a white wall and floor. The sculpture is flat across the top and tapers slightly at the foot, like a coffin. The dark, marine-blue surface is deeply textured with wrinkles and bulges, and drops of the blue material seem to splash out from the edges, especially around the top. Beads line the tendrils leading to the drop-shaped ends.

homegrown #1

2021

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Cameron Clayborn

Cameron is Black with very short black hair and beard. They wear hoop earrings, a gold chain necklace, and a strappy tank top. They sit with arms crossed on a work table with shelves and materials out of focus in the background.

Cameron Clayborn (b. 1992, Pine Bluff, AR) earned their BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and their MFA from Yale University School of Art. Clayborn’s work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA), Woonhuis (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (Portland, OR), Gallery 400 University of Illinois Chicago (Chicago, IL), and Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany), among others. Clayborn has been a recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship (2023) and awarded the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel Statements (2021). They have participated in residences at Casa Wabi (2025), Surf Point Foundation (2023), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2018). Their work is in the permanent collections of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Studio Museum in Harlem, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD).

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2026

Website / Social Links

“ My practice draws on my family’s personal history and seeks to communicate this history through an abstract visual language, addressing themes of grief, legacy, and memory. I am drawn to this work because it is crucial in exploring the non-linear, never-ending process inherent in personal, familial, and collective healing.”