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WORRY FLOWERS

Ink and Paint on Paper, 2021-Ongoing

The Worry Flowers are a twisted menagerie, giving visual expression to the dangers of gathering our problems around us until we can’t see past them. A series of hand scripted calligraphy works on paper, these serve a dual use for larger three dimensional works. Hand scripted Arabic words for worries and burdens form each flower. Words are selected for their representation of challenges and burdens, as well as their potential for both positive and negative interpretations.

The flowers represent the dangers of becoming our worries and letting them overtake us. They manifest the gentle balance between beauty and pain, benefit and drawback, disguising hardship with falsity. The work also touches on the way in which Arabic words, with multiple levels of meaning, enrich our understanding of each.

The Worry Flowers feature in the conceptual works Bouquet of Burdens (private collection) and The Only Way Out is Through (in progress)

They were presented in the group show A Very Narrow Bridge at the Museo Ebraico in Lecce, Italy in 2022-3.

BOUQUET OF BURDENS

2022, Mixed Media (Cut paper, Calligraphy, Spray Paint, Wire), 18" H x 13" W x 9" D, Private collection

Created from the Worry Flowers series, each of these begins as a 2-d calligraphic work. The flower is created from a single repeated word, then cut and molded with wire to form a three dimensional object. The stems and leaves are sculpted using rough-edged wire. Overall the effect is bright and attractive, yet the underlying framework is spindly and barbed with thorns.

 

The bouquet is reminscient of a long decayed vase of real flowers which the owner won’t get rid of, akin to the way people get stuck in a loop of retelling their issues and begin to self identify with them. Similar to the way in which a forgotten vase seems at first glance to be something positive you’d like kept around, these attractive and delicate works harbor sinister undertones in meaning and form.

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