Sahar Khoury

Sahar Khoury (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) lives and works in Oakland, CA. Khoury employs an intuitive approach to composition, utilizing a range of materials and techniques including ceramic, concrete, papier-mâché, resin, textiles, paint, metal, and wood, among others. The anthropological concept of structural vulnerability, seeking patterns in cultures to reveal normalization, is the framework that is at the center of her thinking process. She frequently draws upon objects she describes as “rejected, ubiquitous, unwanted,” and often uses these objects as molds or surfaces for reliefs that appear repeatedly across bodies of work to make new meanings. 

Khoury received her BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1996 and her MFA in Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. She has had solo exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2024); Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco (2022; 2019); CANADA, New York (2022; 2019); and the Luggage Store, San Francisco (2017). 

Khoury’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the Gwangju Biennale (2024); John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (2024); Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley (2022); Scripps 77th Ceramic Annual, Claremont (2022); di Rosa Center for Contemporary Arts, Napa CA (2021); Jack Hanley Gallery, New York (2021); Candice Madey, New York (2021); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2018); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2018); Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2018); amongst others. She was an artist-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito (2020) and received the prestigious SECA Art Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019). 

Khoury's work is in the collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), San Francisco, CA.