2022

I. Sculpture

… he disliked the impulse to impose easy meaning – a generalization, an allegorization, a handy quick-stick label on a complex and recalcitrant reality (Nabokov)

In my recent work, I explore the complexity of the world and everything to do with the butterfly wings – colorful and magically promising. My fascination with butterflies started at the age of six when I got a gift of a brooch that contained a wing of a Brazilian butterfly of the deepest velvety blue. I have indulged my curiosity about butterflies ever since and have studied how artists and writers use images and symbols of butterflies in their work. Butterflies mean life in some cultures and death or decay in others. Referred to as “sky flakes”, “sun tears”, “iridescent lolitas” by writers, they are fragile. If one touches butterfly’s wings, it is likely to perish, yet some species migrate travelling about 3,000 miles annually. Many types of butterflies are endangered.

My latest project inspired by butterflies includes sculptural compositions that use discarded fashion mannequins.  This project is a play on conscious and subconscious referring to the reality mingled up with fantastic, social injustice and dissonance in our society, metamorphosis, consumerism, and environmental issues.  My work has been influenced by artists such as Nick Cave and Jack Whitten, and writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Vladimir Nabokov.

In this work, there could be a spectrum of readings on the continuum of the polar-opposite concepts such as magic and mundane, colorful and dull, fragile and resilient, while avoiding “the impulse to impose easy meaning – a generalization… a handy quick-stick label on a complex and recalcitrant reality”.

Gift Box. Mixed media. 2022.

II. Lanternflies series

Mixed media. Wings series. Oil and mixed media on wooden board. 12 x12 in.