PAINFULL- EMBRACE
(JULY 2014) Size: 12”x12”x10”
Medium: wire mesh, concrete, glue, color pigments
Visiting Israel during summer 2014 was very stressful. The falling of the rockets alongside running to shelters at times of sirens, while worrying about the lives of our soldiers who fought to destroy the tunnels in Gaza.
After watching difficult sights on T.V. with a broken heart and tears in my eyes, I felt the urge to break one of my solid sculptures (made of wire mesh covered completely with white concrete) which depicts humans embracing each other, reminding consolation at a funeral or group of soldiers squeezed inside a tank. Wire mesh was reveled from the open “wounds”.
I pulled wire mesh out of the holes and cut one piece as a symbol to “kriah” the Jewish act of tearing one’s clothes at the funeral home. I’ve painted the torn edges with red not only as a symbol of blood but also because the words “Color Red” appeared on Israeli TV screens as an alert of a siren. A flashlight can illuminate the empty space, “the tunnels”, inside the sculpture. The last touch was smearing color pigments on the outside of my new creation, it became dirty with soil colors of browns, yellow, and red; “PAINFUL EMBRACE” was ready.
DRESS FOR THREE
(2012) size: 28"x22"x26.5"
Installation of three different sculptures that was made for the National Juried Exhibition: “Art and the Human Form”
a meeting point of different periods in the history of my life as an artist: hand made Collectible Art Dolls, Concrete sculpture and my main sculpting medium: wire mesh.
The art doll with an expressive face, colorful dress and a blue mask on her copper colored hair is standing back to back to a white concrete sculpture with the same hair and a golden mask hiding her faceless image.
The white figure is facing a wire mesh sculpture painted in copper that seems like a shell of an invisible woman.
Through this airy, semi transparent material you can see the white solid concrete sculpture. Each one of the three ladies seems to be from another era.
They are connected together as one piece their different dresses have the same flowing folds. There are many contrasts, yet a feeling of inner connection.
