Fire and Water 1994-1998

oil paintings, works on paper, sculpture

Water For the Fires, the first painting of the group, was primarily inspired by reading the book called "May You Be The Mother of a Hundred Sons” by Elisabeth Bumiller- a series of essays about life for women in Contemporary India.

I wanted to allude to the fires that Indian husbands set upon their wives with small dowries, the fires that women throw themselves upon when their husbands die.  The fires are fires of loss and destruction and therefore the water/tears can be a source of cleansing and a shedding of tears of sorrow. As Lucy Lippard points out, “artists cannot change the world… alone(…) but they can offer visual jolts and subtle nudges to conventional knowledge.”