Words on Art and Practice

What I make emerges out of an investigation between the way contradictions affect American culture. Amassed found objects assembled with experimental methodologies are articulated to offer semantic systems which speak to issues of class, politics, and the human condition. These ontological systems, often presented through installation and sculpture, create the preconditions for further critique as to how and why objects shape our zeitgeist. 

My work emerges through intensive research, yet often involves intuition. Identifying objects and institutional bodies, while working reflexively, I attempt to understand their individual influence and significance within contemporary culture. For me, handling these articles between aesthetic outcomes carries symbolic weight beyond the superficial. I see them as languages unto themselves – speaking at larger systems unrestrictively: democracy, authoritarianism, the military-industrial complex, domestic infrastructure, the healthcare system, etc. Paired with careful research and material studies, selected objects and ideas later solidify through assemblage and conceptual integrations. 

The awareness between objective and idiosyncratic delineations within my work allows viewers to navigate how these combinations speak to themselves, and the world more broadly. As a Jewish American, with ancestral roots both in Ukraine and modern Iran, my work is a vehicle – dissecting in earnest, the complexities of the current climate. I see my identity as one who I can feel may offer others a space to think critically, providing social exchange unencumbered by didactics. For that reason, the work I make intentionally exhibits this possibility without one prescriptive narrative. 

More recent explorations involve the imbedding of olive branches in concrete, and their subsequent destruction, alongside the gilding of model rockets and their minimalist presence on marble. These processes and their respective outcomes share an urgent message to viewers; one that calls upon them to engage in their own thinking, acting with hope and compassion that through such will lead to a better future.