ARTIST STATEMENT
This work is a surrealist dreamscape that evokes memories of what music can feel like. The objects are storytellers for my memories of the senses. The pomegranate is a taste of generosity that reminds me of my mother and grandparents. Their seeds are a touch of sweetness sprinkled over traditional foods back home. The soft sand is what makes me feel most connected physically and spiritually to my land. The jasmine flower smells like home. Each is sourced from my own archival images to create a world of my own history. They show my place of comfort. Each element works together to create the same space of refuge that music feels like for me.
Surrealism has taken my artistic intentions deeper into the world of symbolism by taking on meaningful sensibilities, inspired by poets who romantically dissect the idea of home. “The 5 letters to my mother” by the Syrian Poet and diplomat Nizar Qabbani, tackles the nostalgia and yearning for his ‘mother’ who symbolizes home in his writing. Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet, talks about the three things he yearns for in his poem “To My Mother”.
I hope the audience can reflect on the relationship between bodies and the earth. What makes us part of the land? And what parts of the land make us?
