STAFFAGE | NOUR BISHOUTY

Nour Bishouty (Amman, 1986) is an interdisciplinary artist who engages with various expressive mediums – video, sculpture, writing, and digital works – to explore interpersonal boundaries. Her work raises questions about readability, difficulty of understanding, and change.

Staffage (2023) is a walnut wood sculpture carved in the shape of a cow with horns, placed in a lying position. While the front part of the animal is well defined, detailed enough to distinguish eyes and nostrils, as one moves towards the rear area, the cow becomes increasingly shapeless.
On the back and on the right side of the animal’s muzzle, we can notice a pattern of triangles – some filled, others empty, without an apparent logical sequence – carved on the surface and filled with nickel and white mother-of-pearl. The light color stands out brilliantly against the dark brown of the wood, creating an effective magnetic and intriguing effect.
It’s as if where the presence of the pattern is noted, the shape of the animal is well defined; so, in areas devoid of inlays, the artwork remains a simple block of wood.

The sculpture is placed on a low white pedestal, twice the length of the work itself, which, however, is not positioned in the center but near the edge, giving it a sort of ‘stretched,’ almost ‘spread out’ effect. Nevertheless, the overall appearance remains harmonious.

Staffage is a static artwork that conveys dynamism both in the changing shape and in the unbalanced arrangement. The artist uses this dynamism to encourage the viewer to reflect on change, a process to observe and accept, just as the cow – in the midst of a mutation – calmly gazes back at the audience.

Nour Bishouty
Staffage, 2023, detail
Carved walnut with nickel and mother-of-pearl inlay, 27 x 90 x 26 cm (10.6 x 35.4 x 10.2 in)
Courtesy of Cooper Cole, Toronto

Nour Bishouty, Staffage, 2023.
Carved walnut with nickel and mother-of-pearl inlay, 27 x 90 x 26 cm (10.6 x 35.4 x 10.2 in).
Installation view at Gravity Model, January 27 – March 2, 2024, Cooper Cole, Toronto.
Courtesy of Cooper Cole, Toronto.

09/03/2024