Visiting Art Professor, Sahar Khoury, is in a 3 artist show at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art now through July 31.
Nicki Green, Sahar Khoury and Maria Paz all speak about the respect they have for ceramic’s durability, elasticity and strength, and are deeply engaged with the legacy of Bay Area ceramics. However, their practices represent unique modes of ceramic intervention. Green uses clay to create objects that explore history, ritual and the aesthetics of otherness. Khoury, meanwhile, engages in a practice of “creative repair” to create sculptures and installations that incorporate clay with cement, metal, textile and papier-mâché as well as rejected or found materials. Paz, finally, archives her personal and family history on ceramic vessels as an act of resilience and resistance.
On the wall and floor, Sahar Khoury explores the intersection of clay with other media in an improvisatory, materials-driven process that uses clay as a frame for hybrid compositions of paper pulp, textiles, steel, resin and found materials. When confronted, for example, with a cast-off bone holder used for archaeological study, Khoury transformed the object into a cement relief and used clay to join it with steel, resin and fabric into a striking assemblage. Her interventions to the age-old medium of clay create something new altogether, blurring the line between ceramics, sculpture and painting.
Sahar Khoury, Untitled (bone holder with two charms wall relief), 2021 Ceramic, cement, pigmented paper mache, resin, vinyl paint, steel. Courtesy the artist and Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco.