I am an aspiring fashion artist. I employ tools, techniques and ideas I have acquired in a variety of disciplines, including craft, painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, photography and video art. In my work across these disciplines, I’ve explored the human body and learned that fashion was the most powerful expression of the human form.
In one of my video art projects, I explore my relationship with my mother and its impact on my identity. My mother covers me with strips of lace, which she then paints them on me. As she later uncovers me, layers of fabric disappear but the marks of painted lace are left on my body. In another project, I embroidered different tattoos on a transparent body suit. Both projects exemplify my dialogue with the body’s surface and an urge to decorate the human form. I believe fashion recreates the body in a new image, beyond its natural capabilities.
In my work, I use the body as a starting point, as my raw material, and find ways to create illusions, reveal and conceal, build and twist. I search for curvatures, bodily suggestions of a beginning and an end, manifestations of infinity. I then continue with the outfit as a powerful portal to a wide world of fantasies and references. I am then left with the most challenging part, translating my vision into a sculptural object which would satisfy me.
In “De Profundis,” Oscar Wilde captures the meaning of art to me. He says, “What the artist is always looking for is the mode of existence in which soul and body are one and indivisible: in which the outward is expressive of the inward.” Fashion design mirrors this notion. The body and the soul sync together to express the entire energy of a person.
I grew up in a vibrant, dynamic, yet problematic country, and from a young age, design was my refuge. The Israeli reality is a difficult one, at times frustrating and absurd, and I always felt the need to disconnect however I could. Through aesthetics, I tried to balance the ugly and the harsh, and at the same time capture the vivacity of the body.
I have always dreamed of breaking out of the boundaries and limitations I have faced growing up. I have always strived to study a wide breadth of artistic skills and subjects, in order to become more exposed and expressive. Parsons’ approach, of breaking the mold feels like the right environment to do so. I want to embark on a journey that would strengthen my abilities and refine my personal style. “Who am I” is a difficult question. I believe that at Parsons, surrounded by inspiring, talented artists, away from home geographically, mentally, and culturally, I will come closer to answering it. And If I’m fortunate enough to become part of it, I hope my journey there would culminate in a career as a fashion designer who left his mark on others’ bodies, on human form.