Personal Statement on Art

Artwork is powerful because it is more than just a mirror of nature. It does not merely reflect reality, it actively shapes and calls it forth. Art is not passive, it’s constitutive … it is a generative force, capable of conjuring otherwise hidden truths, and forging connections that transcend our everyday existence. In an age starved for meaning, art answers our longing for connection … revealing, through the potency of visual and poetic form, a world charged with vitality, significance, and spiritual resonance. Art creates the world anew, inviting us into spaces of luminous clarity and depth, where fragmentation yields to unity, and disenchantment gives way to wonder. Art is not ornamental or secondary, or merely a matter of “subjective” entertainment. Rather, it stands as a fundamental act of human engagement … a transformative practice that reconnects us with ourselves, each other, and the vast, ineffable cosmos that surrounds and sustains us.

For me, art is personally redemptive. Born behind the “Iron Curtain”, during the “Cold War”, amidst cultural and political repression that stripped away my family’s identity and traditions, I was shaped by a profound spiritual void. As I navigate adulthood, supported by my family and confronted by personal illness, I strive to reclaim spirituality not through formal religion but through thoughtful, intentional engagement with art. Through my creative practice, I seek glimpses of the sublime, continually working to re-enchant my world.

My photographic education began early, in childhood, during my family's refugee years in North Africa. I recently realized that, even back then, I had some inkling that the camera is more than just a tool for documenting the external world. And by now I’ve come to believe that photography has the potential, as it were, to capture the “world behind the world” … to connect us with the hidden, the mysterious, the uncanny … to approach the sacred. Each project deepens this spiritual pursuit, inspired by artists such as Minor White, Kandinsky, and filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. My philosophical outlook owes much to Charles Taylor, my professor and mentor during my undergraduate studies at McGill University, whose teachings on identity and spirituality continue to shape my journey as an artist.