BDE (Ongoing)

In this work, portraits become landscapes of collective grief, with layers of soil, ash, glitter, and oil paint evoking the weight of trauma. The abstraction of the human form reflects the dehumanization in times of war, where innocent lives are stripped of individuality and reduced to mere symbols of suffering. The paintings themselves, like a ravaged conflict zone, are beaten, violated, and fractured, embodying the destruction and fragility of life amidst violence and loss. 

The BDE series confronts the mass disappearances in times of conflict, both personal and societal, urging reflection on the disintegration of empathy and the erasure of humanity in the wake of violence. It is a recognition that such deaths, tragic and incomprehensible, stem from a profound failure to understand and embrace our differences. This work urges us to reflect on the disintegration of empathy, and the double erasure of humanity—both in the victims, whose suffering is often overlooked or ignored, and in the voyeurism of the world consuming this suffering from afar, detached from the reality of its human cost.

Through seven large-scale paper works, a haunting, fragmented landscape is created, one where female bodies hover between states of disappearance and reappearance. These works explore the vulnerability, strength, and resilience of women caught in the turmoil of conflict, reflecting the complex dynamics of power, resistance, and survival.

Conceived as a forest, the series metaphorically represents the liminal space where danger and transformation coexist. Like the forests in children’s fairytales, the landscape is filled with mystery and potential for change. The number seven, central to the series, carries deep significance in Jewish tradition, symbolizing cycles of creation, rest, and renewal. The seven suspended panels invite viewers to consider the tension between visibility and obscurity, reflecting both the destruction and the possibility of reclamation in the face of chaos. In Balagan, vulnerability and strength coexist, revealing stories of survival and healing amidst turmoil.

The Stop Right There series uses the language of portraiture to create a double moment of ethical subjectivity. In effect, the face of the Other is used as mediation device, one that negotiates the encounter between a painted and a viewing subject. This double moment of subjectivity prompts the question of whether it is the gaze of the painted subject who suspends the viewer in time, or whether it is the viewer’s look that momentarily captures the gaze of the painted subject? The portraits are not general or arbitrary figures, they are gender-specific, who despite their individual situation of despair, panic, or worry, gain a sense of collective strength as they stand in solidarity with each other. Employing the structure of an ethical moment of the face-to-face, as philosopher Emmanuel Levinas articulated it, A.Z captures the challenge gender-based violence presents humanity. 

Drawing on the history of sketching as a deeply personal medium and one that often functions as a reference point for painting, the portraits that make up Femme-Animalia collectively read as an illustrated diary. Each image pairs a female with her other-than-human companion, configuring subjectivity as a queer relation that slips and slides amidst the artificial human-animal divide. Depicting a multifaceted series of intimate female and other-than-human animal attachments, each portrait illuminates a unique transpecies bond of care, empathy, companionship, reciprocity, and affection. These inherently collective subjects problematize ideas of human individualism and exceptionalism.