The Dream
Small-scale study made as part of a residency at the Villa Empain, Brussels, 2021
The Swimming Pool series began during a recent stay at the Villa Empain of the Boghossian Foundation in Brussels, Belgium. The Dream is a small scale site-specific handmade study that opened up the path for more complex elaborate designs. Contemplative personal experiences, the notion of movement, visual reminiscences, the underlying history and aesthetics of the surrounding architectural structures that host them are all present in one way or another in the Swimming Pool pieces. I have often taken my cues from favorite historical art movements such as Art Nouveau, Modernism or field painting—and, more recently, from Islamic art. As with my pictorial compositions, I see these floating works as an attempt to reimagine my connection with the notions of pleasure, playfulness and balance through modules that generate their own gravitational pull.