The gate series, initiated in 2020, is oriented around the repetition of a consistent form: a horizontal beam balanced atop two vertical posts - resembling an Indian torana. Over the past two years I have built hundreds of gates. Stylistically minimal and responsive to spatial conditions, each gate resonates diverse personal, social, and environmental paradoxes.

The initial gate, photographed here, was constructed with reclaimed barn wood in the fields of my Ukrainian ancestors and resembles an Indian torana - the materials and form unintentional uniting my heritage. The work was installed in a public walking area and spoke to the transitional nature of home.

Installed at the same site as the initial gate in 2020, the gate was constructed with my mother during the height of the Ukrainian conflict - as a means of processing personal and ancestral trauma. The balancing beams are held up by their own weight and speak to a stoic sense of fragility. It honors the ones who have left and the ones that are left.

Over the past two years I have built hundreds of gates - from dominos on the kitchen table to 14 foot tall structures in the mountains of Fontainebleau. 

The photographed gate was installed at Beaux Arts de Paris amidst discarded art materials. Over the period of weeks it was deconstructed and transformed by unknown passersbys. On a personal level, the installation soothed the messiness of queer relating and explored the tension between love and sin.

Viewing notes: The structure was initially installed alongside a piece from the wall series with Laurie Anderson’s "Walking and Falling" playing on loop.