Tough Breaks: MFA Thesis Exhibition. Art Center College of Design. April 2015. 

Tapestry, Cement, embroidery floss, polyester, 2x4'. 

Molten, Sheet brass, paper. Dimensions vary (roughly 24"x30")

Tough Breaks, Hydrocal Gypsum. Dimensions vary. 

Lapse (Polio. Kibbutz Merhavia. 1948). Continuous loop video projection. Dimensions vary. 

This work examines and blurs the boundaries of fragility and strength. Playing with image, density and weight, one’s expectations of how these materials function becomes tangled, creating a tension between opposing forces. Through this collision of elements, the fragile and the strong become inextricably tied to one another, each emphasizing and embodying its opposite.  

Although the body is evoked and implicated through the floor treatment and other works in the space, the projected image of a man swimming introduces the only virtual human presence. Lapse (Polio. Kibbutz Merhavia. 1948) marks a pivotal moment in history on both a micro and macro scale, noting the moment my father contracted polio as well as the establishment of the state of Israel. These two events in my own history have heightened my sensitivity to the complex blurring of lines between fragility and strength, vulnerability and power.  A man’s body glides through water, his strong arms propelling forward as his legs float delicately behind like the tail of a kite, as if they belonged to someone else. The repetition of the movement connotes both a sense of strengthening and exhaustion. The simultaneity of both the fragile and the strong is embodied by one being. These opposing forces create both fusion and fission. The seemingly contradictory qualities become linked and confuse our perceptual assumptions of how materials and the body function, embodying both strength and fragility. It is through this seeming contradiction of qualities that the complexity of my personal history with my father as well as my heritage emerges.