about the artist…

my work reflects a history i inherited, a memory of experiences and loss i absorbed but
did not have.  and though i live my life in the present, this memory of a time i did not
know wraps itself around me indelibly.

in 1937 my parents were married in prague.  by 1939 their lives were changed
inalterably when the nazi party began its assault on europe.  after an odyssey through
the former yugoslavia, greece and italy, my father finally escaped nazi persecution and
eventually found refuge in the settlement of sosua in the dominican republic.  my
mother was to follow but could not get a visa and was forced to remain in prague.  all
attempts to obtain exit papers for her were to no avail and in 1942 she was deported
to the concentration camp terezin.  after the war ended— and after 7 years separated by
war— my parents reunited in the dominican republic, where i was born.

in my work, i allow my senses to be my interpreter as i create landscapes of absence.
i cannot help but think of the people before me— people who look like me, laughing in
the sun, standing by lakes, in the mountains, walking, arms linked, on cobblestone
streets, whose faces i know but whom i’ve never met…grandparents, aunts, uncles,
cousins who did not return from auschwitz, sosnowitz, maly trostinec, dachau and
unknown places.

in the shadows of my drawings, as i weave together fragments, line, marks and image,
i try to make whole what is not whole at all…