Toba Khedoori

Through a meticulous, time-consuming process that blends painting and drawing, Toba Khedoori (b. 1964) creates intricate, contemplative compositions depicting façades, plants, grids, windows, and doorways, among other subjects, that appear arrested in time and space—as though existing in a liminal state. Primarily done on immense sheets of waxed paper, her work espouses a neutral language of objecthood and natural forms versus one of figurative or gestural expressivity and narrative forms. Though Khedoori’s emphasis on the fragment reinforces associations with the photographic, her work’s singular visual and experiential qualities evade direct analogy to other media and formats.

Born in 1964 in Sydney, Khedoori received her M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1994. Joining the gallery that same year, she was one of the first artists to be represented by David Zwirner. A solo show, which marked her seventh at the gallery in New York, was on view in 2023.

At the Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany, a solo exhibition of the artist's work was on view in 2021-2022. In 2019-2020, a large selection of works by Khedoori was presented in a group exhibition titled Resonating Spaces at Fondation Beyeler in Basel. In 2016, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art organized a major solo exhibition of Khedoori’s work, marking her first museum survey in over a decade. The show traveled to Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) in 2017.

Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide, including the St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri (2003); Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2002); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2001); Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2001); and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (1997). Her first museum solo exhibition was organized in 1997 by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and traveled to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In 2002, Khedoori was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Grant. She has participated in a number of international group exhibitions, including the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); Liverpool Biennial (2006); 26th São Paulo Biennial (2004); and the 1995 Whitney Biennial, among others.

Work by the artist is represented in major museum collections worldwide, including Art Institute of Chicago; The Broad, Los Angeles; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She lives and works in Los Angeles.