Fassbender Gallery 312.666.4302

ARTIST STATEMENT
The contents of one's work cannot be separated from one's experience and individual perceptions. My work is connected to its historical, political, and social context, and is shaped by the violence I witnessed in Germany. I experienced Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass," with all of its violence and hatred. The Holocaust colors my view of life; it has left a permanent inner scar. I confront the past through my work. I vowed not to remain silent but to fight for the elimination of injustice, of man s inhumanity to man, be it racism, sexism, the memory of the Holocaust, the horrors of Hiroshima, Cambodia, Vietnam, South Africa, Central America or Bangladesh. I have channeled my pain into creative expression. My large walk-in installations are emotionally charged, interactive spaces. They invite the viewer to walk through them, thus participating in and placing themselves within the space, which forces them to reconsider their basic assumptions, to re-examine their own feelings and attitudes.

Although my medium of expression has varied over the many years I have been working -- from drawing to painting, collage, construction, and photography to installations -- my themes of political, feminist, and autobiographical concerns remain the same. They create rhythm and pulsation, a human landscape with its own circulatory system: cells, veins, and arteries imbued with the force of life and hope for humanity.

Useless violence creates defiance within me and I use visual language to emphasize courage and to celebrate life. With the approach of the new Millennium, we must assess the extreme evil and pain of the twentieth century, but we must also acknowledge its love, joy, and beauty. My constructions and installations serve as resistance and protest, my images as weapons to fight for the elimination of extreme evil. Art has the means of effecting change.