Naomi Ebenstein

No Title, 2022

Clay, Swarovski Crystals,
16 x 8 x 6 inches

No title, 2022

Clay, Swarovski crystals,
14 x 6 x 4 inch

No title, 2022

Acrylic on canvas,
14 x 20 inches

No title, 2022

Acrylic and pastels on canvas,
26 x 20 inches

No title, 2022

Screenprint,
10 x 15 inches

Novum Vetus Mundus, 2022

Installation prototype

Novum Vetus Mundus, 2022

Digital installation mockup

Artist Statement

My pieces explore my hybrid identity pertaining to my roots, beliefs, and communities; Poland, paganism, LGBTQ+ communities in Slavic countries, Judaism. My art practice is consisting mostly of 2D and 3D works present variable corporeal fantasy and transformation. My sculptures divest a sexual fantasy about a nude body to the point of absurdity. It reveals the unknown and unnatural and becomes eerie.

The 3D work I create oscillates between sexual carnality and the drama of life, looking for the truth about existence and death; nature and the illusion, the sensual shapes reminding us of women bodies are intertwined with animal parts; horns, snouts, humps, antennas etc. They are torn, distorted bodies, hybrids, post humans – goddesses.

The raw, monumental sculpture, enchanted in a symbolic female form, a contempt for suffering, alludes to women’s experiences, spins a tragic chronicle of the atrocities of the modern world. The liquid organicity of the forms corresponds to the organic nature of the material from which they were made – clay. On the other hand, we cannot see the organic clay mass itself, it has been covered by a layer of thousands of infinitesimal rhinestones in order to increase the resistance and give the sculptures a characteristic luminescence structure; the work holds an element of playfulness in which it offers alternative depictions or interpretations of familiar concepts or objects. It investigates the body as an instrument of creation.

These reference traditional Slavic culture and modes of dress from folklore, but also borrow inspiration from my upbringing life in Poland – the taboo queer culture there is, while also evoking religious processional attire and the outfits worn by cult performers. My art is meant to stir emotions in the viewer and encourage the observer to find meaning not only in the material’s current manifestation but also in its past, its history, its birth.