I am currently working towards an MFA at Parsons University in New York City.
Through my Jewish, Lebanese upbringing I have learned to challenge the traditional norms of the community I was raised in by seeking higher education in Psychology at NYU, playing the drums, and voicing my opinion through photography, creative-writing and painting. As opposed to justifying my expected gender specific role, I am seeking out a professional future that utilizes art to call attention to social problems that exist in traditional communities. My social upbringing and personal experiences influence the themes and work I will produce.
As an emerging artist, my work wishes to defy the familiar, and elucidate glitches in our autonomy. I tend to challenge the viewer’s traditional way of seeing, offering a shift in perspective. In my abstract photography, I often create a dichotomous tension between the tangible and the abyss. Since the viewer habitually seeks out the familiar in order to extract meaning I often incorporate easily detectable figures in my abstract artwork to manipulate the viewer’s tactics. I create this tension purposefully as to challenge the viewer into abandoning his/her compulsion to cling to the associations made with the familiar and instead create an idiosyncratic interpretive guide.
Through photography, I become an observer of a fast, provocative and ostensibly unpredictable experience that I feel hardly in control of. This process of losing control and letting go of ego and authority has amounted in a spiritual creative process. As my photos unfold, it is difficult to discern my initial intent vs. the unintentional decisions driven by another force.