The Magical Mender

This work is a dialogue between memory, material, and resilience. Through hand stitching as fiber art, plaster, and metallic surfaces, I explore themes of displacement, war, and cultural identity, weaving together fragments of personal and collective histories. The work is a homage to those that stitch or sew garments. From my mother, my grandmother who made our cloths, to the simple worker in a sweat shop. It took six months of hand stitching this work and two months to add the metals on top.

My practice is deeply influenced by the tactile and ephemeral nature of materials—jute and burlap evoke the textures of migration and labor, while plaster captures the fragility of memory, and reflective metallic surfaces confront the viewer with their own presence in history. The act of stitching is both a meditative process and a symbolic gesture of repair. In my paintings, plaster and metallic elements interplay between opacity and reflection, presence and absence. The reflective surfaces disrupt the static nature of the image, involving the viewer as an active participant in the work. Through this process, I invite the viewer to reflect on their own place within these narratives, engaging in a shared act of remembering.