Mizrah (In this Direction, the Source of Life), 2026, Repoussé and chased copper, maple wood, brass

In this work, I draw on 18th and 19th century Eastern European Jewish papercuts, specifically, the acronymic ‘mizrah’ (in Hebrew: mi-tzad ze rư ah hayyim: East; From this direction the spirit of life) which hung on walls in homes and synagogues to direct prayer. Completed as Artist in Residence at the Dorsky Museum of Art, I researched “Palm with Pomegranate,” a 1991 bronze sculpture by Oded Halahmy in the museum’s permanent collection. Halahmy’s work references exile, religion, and landscape in relation to his three homelands of Syria, Israel, and the US. Inspired by Halahmy’s modernist concerns of form, line, and negative space as well as his harmonious depictions of universal symbols such as the pomegranate, I approach religious and historical symbols with irony and reverence. In Mizrah, coded symbols enmesh nationalistic narratives at home and abroad with both religious blessings and warnings. An olive tree, the tree of life, revered as a symbol of longevity in both Jewish culture and Palestinian resistance blooms despite a severed branch. The column of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem crashes into the frame, cut off by a border wall ensnared with dangerous wire. Resisting binary interpretation, I illustrate the hypocrisy in justifications of geopolitical artifice, highlighting the violence done to nature and spirit alike in the quest to pursue religious virtue.