My Artist’s Statement for Rooting & Renewal @ the Skirball Cultural Center
Artist’s Statement, Devorah Brous (2.2.25)
My life’s work is a devotional poem to the mystical Tree of Life - an iconic symbol of interbeing, balance, and reciprocity. My photographs and altars of fruit, berry, bark, leaf, bud, and native plants reveal the Tree of Life in infinite form - microcosms of precision that all originate from one macrocosm.
In Jewish mysticism, trees and people are woven together through a reciprocal exchange of breath. “For we are like trees in the field.” (Deut. 20:19) Tree roots anchor as branches seek sunlight that leaves can alchemize into food. Likewise, our own familial roots anchor and shape us through generations of bonding, loss, and renewal. The Tree of Life is a healing bridge between our ancestors and descendants, the ephemeral and eternal, the soil and soul.
According to Kabbalah, the fruits of the Tree of Life are parts of the soul that can be found in nature - in the landscapes we love, and those we’ve lost. Kabbalists believe that our senses are a direct conduit to the soul, and that eating fruit is a way of tapping into the soul. As you engage the senses and wander through the Four Worlds, each a category of fruit, my hope is that you taste renewal.
In the bleak aftermath of the wildfires, the cycles of destruction and renewal have left many people fearful of nature’s elements. Yet in Hebrew, fear and awe share the same root. In the Kabbalistic compilation of books, the Zohar 11:24A, it is said that “Fire, wind, earth, and water are the sources and roots of all things above and below.” May these altars of everyday fruit gift us a moment of awe over nature’s myriad offerings. As we feed or are fed by the sheer magnanimity and swift organizational efficiency of LA’s abundant mutual-aid network offerings in times of crisis, may you feel grounded, centered, and rooted.
In these installations, note that all that ripens also rots. And the inverse is also true: what is lost, becomes nutrient and mineral for what is yet to come. Kabbalists remind us to take note of the barely perceptible shifts that happen mid-winter with an eye toward renewal. We’ve seen the hopeful signs that herald renewal in our landscapes before. Listen in for a healing landscape story that reveals where adaptation has already begun in LA: the hint of bud swell on a branch, native plant “fire-followers” that sprout next to a burnt tree, or the “fuzzing” along a tree trunk where a bird nest is being woven. The Tree of Life and Traditional Ecological Knowledge both remind us that the recovery of our urban communities and LA’s wilderness, the waterways, and the air we breathe all hang in the balance of our ecologies.
~Devorah Brous | FromSoil2Soul
