Masking, covering, hiding, revealing, protecting.
Sometimes the act of protecting can be construed as hiding.
The act of masking can be misread as selective revealing.
And similarly, the process of remembrance is also one of selective forgetting.
Are we vulnerable when we reveal ourselves, when we share, when we remember?
Or does the vulnerability come when we let others protect us, shield us, hide us from the truths?
The gold paint on the acrylic sheet, along with the gold paint on the ceramic sculpture, reinforce the value (both literal through the process of gilding, and metaphorical in terms of significance) of transformation. Caught between being a sculpture and a painting, the two mediums further depict a place of tension and harmony, each fighting to cover up the other one, while both are simultaneously enveloping the figure.
In Russian culture, the notion of a "душа" closely translates to the English word, soul. There exists a level of frustration when English words are unable to capture the true meaning of a Russian idea. This frustration is played out through code-switching: when a speaker alternates between two language varieties during the context of a single conversation. For some, code-switching becomes a natural form of speech, and perhaps for many people their natural form of thought. We articulate our emotions and ideas in a single language, yet the way in which we contrive of them is in a unique mental construction specific to an individual. The painting "Dusha" is a visual representation of code-switching, using the Cyrillic and English alphabet to mesh the true spelling of the Russian "soul" with the word's phonetic spelling.
A first-generation immigrant is one who moves to a new country and tends to progress without the desire to reflect on what was left behind, or they may be nostalgic for a home they never even experienced. A second-generation immigrant is born in the new country, and tends to desire to reflect on the past of their family in order to assist with understanding their origins. They may be nostalgic for signs of the past and find ways of restoring it. A generation 1.5 is caught in-between. A green card represents the first generation, and a passport as the second; yet the nonfunctional green card is the generation 1.5– expired from its original intent, its conceptual renewal creates an uncanny relationship for the beholder of the document.