Shabbat Dinner, 2024.
"If you could invite anyone to dinner, dead or alive, who would you ask?”
This work explores the soul’s journey through Jewish mystical thought, drawing on Kabbalistic ideas of the soul’s five layers and its transition from the physical to the spiritual. It reflects on the enduring bonds between the living and the departed, and the way memory, ritual, and love continue to intertwine beyond death.
At the heart of the work is a Shabbat dinner table—an emblem of sacred time and connection. In Jewish tradition, Shabbat brings an additional soul, a spiritual tether to the Divine. This concept becomes a felt presence here: viewers are invited to imagine who they would share this meal with, living or dead.
Two scarves—one belonging to the artist and one to her late mother—rest on the chairs, marking a personal and sacred entanglement of memory, grief, and presence.
Accompanying the visual works is a poem that deepens the emotional and spiritual thread of the series. Through text and image, the artist offers a meditation on the nature of the soul: its expressions, its echoes, and its capacity to bridge worlds.
This work reflects on the spiritual structure formed by Mitzvot—holy deeds that elevate the soul beyond the physical realm.
Each act is imagined as a seed planted in life, blooming into a pathway toward transcendence and divine connection.
Oil on canvas, 55.8 x 55.7 cm.
Tower of Mitzvot
Two Souls
This work traces the ongoing connection between the artist and her late mother, Lisa.
It reflects on how relationships endure beyond the physical, suggesting that soul ties continue to shift, deepen, and unfold across different realms of existence.
Oil on canvas, 121 x 101.6 cm.
5 Layers
This piece explores the soul’s unfolding through the five dimensions described in Kabbalah: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida.
Each stage reflects a movement toward spiritual awareness and connection with the Divine.
Oil on canvas, 55.8 x 55.7 cm.
Life is long and I love big bodies of water.
Life is long and I love it when someone rubs my back.
Life is long and I love when you message someone, and they say, "I was just thinking about you!"
Life is long, and I love it when strangers say "Shabbat Shalom" to me on the street.
Life is long, and I love having dinner with my friends. I love it when they bring me something and say, "I brought you your favourite." And they know what my favourite is because they know me. They think of me.
Life is long, and I love asking questions,
I love to hold those I love in my thoughts and to be held in theirs, to be buoyed by our shared delight in the existence of one other.
Life is long, and I love the smell right before it rains. I love big belly laughs, dramatic cackles, and goofy smiles that leave me with sore muscles.
Life is long, and I clearly love to wear my heart on my sleeve.
Life is short and my Mother died before I could ask her for her chicken soup recipe, before I could ask her about her favourite books.
Life is long and I forgot to take a sample of every tune she hummed, to capture her smell.
Life is long and although I didn’t collect documentation of her every thought and mannerism, I conjure them in my mind.
Remembering is such a holy thing.
Life is long and remembering doesn't have to be sad, although it's allowed to be. My Mother isn't just a sad story; she's a fact of my life. My flesh and blood that made me and my family.
Life Is Long, Poem
Life is long and my Mother was complex with harshness and layers. But I look like her and she was an outstanding cook; she called me chicken and cookie, she had the best taste in everything and made the most delicious roast chicken.
Life is long, and there are so many things I wish I could ask her about, about her beliefs about love and life.
If I stopped telling people about her, if her name no longer passed my lips, I would lose a piece of myself, an important piece.
Life is long, and there is a bridge between my mother and me that grows longer each year. She doesn't get to know me as I grow older. She hasn't seen me as I find new parts of myself, she hasn't seen my pink hair, and she'll never see me fall in love or create a family.
But life is long, remembering is holy, and I'm conversing with the past.
In adulthood, through making art and loving with sincerity, I still have the privilege of incorporating her name and existence into my life.
Life is long; my Mother's name was Lisa. May her memory be a blessing.
