In my installations I wish to bring to the surface the inner struggle of psychological trauma and the unspoken common feelings which are familiar to mankind. My art is strongly connected with the "art is life and life is art" notion. Everything I wish to express in my art springs deeply from my own life experiences. Long before I knew what installation was, I did an installation for my ex-husband to express my feelings about our divorce. Fives years later at UCLA I had an opportunity to study installation with Charlie Ray and Paul McCarthy. The installation form allows me to think and create more freely, lets my imagination and intuition fly without any restrictions to certain mediums.
This body of work which I started at UCLA is part of my existence and somewhat therapeutic. I am hoping to reach those who have experienced these feelings in their bones. My work embodies and recapitulates the suffering and pain, the emotional devastation which is so characteristic of the end of this century, mostly due to the broken family syndrome.
In my installation titled "Marriage," the viewer cannot see the whole piece at once, only in fragments, just like how we feel or experience emotion or dreams. The piece consists of a queen-sized bed, cut in half. One half of it is positioned outside, against the building wall. The bed is covered with a half a blanket and the installation includes a pillow and slippers. The grass and the trees push the piece into the realm of surrealism. The second half of the bed with the half blanket, pillow and slippers are positioned inside the gallery against the same wall as the outer installation. This part of the bed only will be visible after the viewer crosses through a hallway and my second installation titled "Blood, Sweat and Tears." Each drop is one or two feet long, glazed with red overglaze. The sweat is white-colored glass. Each drop is one or two feet long, about five or six pieces each. At the bottom of the drops are red and white acrylic sheets in the shape of frozen pools of liquid.
This careful selection of materials is extremely important to my work. The third installation titled "When My Mind Stood Still in Sadness" will take up a quarter of the big gallery. In the west corner, I will have a fireplace with cold ashes. On the top of the fireplace mantel are melted down candles. Next to the fireplace are two single seats three feet apart. The first couch is empty. In front of the second couch a glass skeleton is lounging on the floor, the arms are under the head which is resting on the couch. Carefully selected music will be added to the installation.
Why do I think my work is so important? Because I imagine my life is an art piece and I am documenting it through my art. It will be one of the best examples for art historians to explain that indeed, art is life and life is art. I wish to communicate, contact, bridge, dedicate these pieces to humanity to ensure consciousness and avoid emotional holocaust for ourselves and our children. I wish to give a memorable experience to the viewer and make people understand and remember my images and familiar feelings that I exhibit. The usage of diverse materials and medium give me the opportunity to be more expressive and exhibit my virtuosity as an artist.
David Hickey characterised the role of the contemporary art word as "... therapeutic. It has engaged in trying to make the public better by getting it to accept something that is good for it without providing the pleasures of beauty. Instead, art now has to try to sell itself. This is very hard when art lacks beauty."
In opposition to this notion, my art has to embody beauty in several forms: physical, conceptual, intellectual, and emotional. When I am able to reach the synthesis between all the above, my work becomes "poetic, highly sensitive and conceptually beautiful," as described by my teacher, Paul McCarthy. Therefore, I share my experiences as a fellow participate in the ongoing quest for understanding of "life." My curiosity of other's intellectual response is very important for me because I will be enabled to see more clearly. Therefore, I want to engage with the viewer by email. I feel responsible as a woman artist to share my ideas and to influence the well-being of our society.
To close the gap between art and artists and the public, achieving universal harmony, we artists have all the creative freedom to institute change to help ourselves and our trouble society.