bow bow, May 5 – Jun 11, 2017

CANADA is pleased to announce bow bow, a two-person exhibition featuring Johanna Jackson and Sahar Khoury. These two sculptors have neither collaborated nor shown together. Artist curator Tony Cox recognized their material and conceptual affinities, what he describes as shared acts of ‘ancient maintenance,’ and felt they belonged together. Jackson and Khoury produce hand-built, delicate constructions; they employ clay or concrete, their forms are natural or urn-like, and they share an experimental approach to sculpture that is both archaic and of the future.

Khoury makes vessels and freestanding numerals that resemble amphoras or figures. They are careworn objects and bare the residue of use--built from found or discarded materials--and their patchwork surfaces are covered with paper mâché or paint. Her numeral sculptures are placed just so, arranged in a way reminiscent of a garden, a forest, or a crowd, and indicate years of personal and neoliberal significance: 1953 or 1979. In their titles and forms, these works suggest traces of history and monuments, and yet Khoury displays an openness to the act of making.

Jackson uses language in visual ways: her tin sculptures are pressed with words and images like a sort of instruction manual for the subconscious. She creates objects that are simultaneously recognizable yet transformed beyond utility; her rugs are hooked by hand, and a grandfather clock stands rendered in clay and frozen in time. The scale of her work is purposefully sized for the body or the home, as though she’s drafting a proposal for a weirder way of living. She tunes an antenna towards the universe, and listens for the mysterious.

Johanna Jackson (b. 1972 in Springfield, Massachusetts) currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo and two person exhibitions include “The Middle Riddle” with Chris Johanson at the Journal Gallery, Brooklyn; "What It Means to Learn" with Dana Dart-McLean at Human Resources in Los Angeles (2015); "The Big Fig" at the Portland Museum of Modern Art (2013); and “Money on Fire,” a video commission for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2011). Her work has also been exhibited in group shows at the Oakland Museum of California, Marlborough Gallery in New York, Roberts & Tilton in Los Angeles, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. In December, she will be present a solo exhibition with Adams & Ollman in Portland, Oregon.

Sahar Khoury (b.1973) currently lives and works in Oakland, California. Recent exhibitions include ‘They,’ Luggage Store and 2nd Floor Projects, both in San Francisco. Her work has been exhibited in group shows at the Oakland Museum of California and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She received her BA in Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz in 1996 and her MFA From UC Berkeley in 2013. She worked as an ethnographer at the Cesar Chavez Institute at San Francisco State University from 2002-2015. Her research focused on the structural vulnerability of Latino migrant day laborers in the Bay Area.

Tony Cox (b. 1975, Louisville, Kentucky) lives and works in New York and is represented by Marlborough Contemporary. His work has been exhibited extensively in New York at venues such as The Jewish Museum, White Columns, Salon 94, Andrew Edlin Gallery, and Kate Werble Gallery. His work is currently on view at Reyes Projects in Detroit. As a member of the performance group LOBOTOMAXXX, Cox has performed around the US at galleries and institutions including the Perez Museum and Hammer Museum. Their next performance will be at the Brant Foundation, in Greenwich, CT in conjunction with Animal Farm an exhibition curated by Sadie Laska.

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