LIVING HOPE: If not now, when?
March 30, 2022 - May 25, 2022
Orna Ben-Ami is a sculptor and one of the only Israeli iron welders known for the ability to reconstruct her own fragmented stories as a woman and an artist into delicate interpretations of femininity and art.
Orna believes as women and art converge, art becomes stronger than the resounding masculine attributes of iron materials. Her delicate depictions of the history of refugees in Syria and Africa in “Entire Life in a Package” exhibited globally, sponsored by the United Nations and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel.
Through the iron, attached to photos taken by Reuters photographers, she expresses the will to hold on to the identity and memories with her sculpted symbolized objects, while simultaneously rendering them eternal like meaningful metal monuments. For decades, where Orna's artworks centered on the significance of cultural identities, human suffering and the grief in her past, her new body of work embraces the gentle moments of the present as she looks to the future.
The Living Hope Exhibition is the artist's second solo New York show since her debut in March 2017 that shares her compassionate outlook with work created over the course of two years. Orna focuses on cherishing the precious moments of life and deals with herself as a mother, wife and grandmother with humor and a lighter hand to rediscover the softness of a woman creating in iron.
In light of enduring the climate of Coronavirus Pandemic alongside the progressing tragedies and global conflicts, The Living Hope exhibition encourages people to be content by appreciating each moment in life.
