Collection 2023

Vessels of Holding

“Vessels of Holding” is a visual elegy to connection—between loved ones, and within the self. It is a meditation on the quiet, sometimes desperate ways we try to preserve what we cannot bear to lose. Through veiled forms, shielded faces, and tender, entangled gestures, the series explores the weight of love under threat: the unbearable ache of knowing that everything we hold dear—another’s presence, our own identity—can slip away.

These faceless figures do not plead. They hold, they brace, they fold inward. In doing so, they reflect both external bonds—parent to child, lover to partner, sibling to sibling—and the internal dialogue we carry throughout life: the part of us that endures, and the part that feels like it could fracture at any moment.

Set against the backdrop of a world marked by war, exile, and existential fragility, these works become vessels of survival. The gestures are small—covering the eyes, embracing the torso, pressing into another’s body—but their emotional gravity is immense. They speak to the invisible rituals of holding on: to those we love, to the self we once were, to what still remains when all else shifts.

Here, love is not ornamental. It is the last thread, the tether between presence and loss. These are not just portraits of others; they are mirrors of ourselves in moments of reckoning—when the instinct to shield becomes sacred, and the act of holding becomes both sanctuary and surrender.

In a world of rupture, “Vessels of Holding” is a quiet but unshakable reminder: that what we carry—within, and between us—is what keeps us whole.