Shana Kaplow | Proximity | Pigmented Ink Photographic Prints and Watercolor on archival paper | 2005

How do the conflicts that play out in the public realm affect us on a personal level?  These photographic portraits are of Arab, Jewish, and Christian artists who have forged personal relationships despite social forces to separate us.  The portraits are interspersed with abstracted watercolor images that may resemble bodies, organs, or spills of fluids.  In my mind, this group comes together around the suffering but open heart.  In the face of racism and xenophobia, and the separation caused by it, I bring these faces together to notice our common witnessing and ultimately our connections.