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Upending portraiture’s logic, I make, paint, and then photograph expressive, unfired clay figures and busts inspired by the mystical golem.

Blending sculpture, photography, painting, and history, these works explore how objects, despite being fundamentally inert, can appear alive and emotionally intelligible via the spectator’s bias and become a metaphor for the slippery nature of truth. AI and political divisiveness call into question both the veracity of images and reality itself. What, exactly, are we looking at? My work always traffics in this confusion.

A 2025 visit to the Jewish Ghetto in Prague revealed that the mud Golem, a symbol of protection against persecution, was said to be animated by the Hebrew word אמת (emet), meaning “truth.” In this context, photography assumes the role of inscription, activating the clay through illusion and belief. Yet photography rarely reveals truth, and like the golem, distributed images are impossible to control.

My 2006 photographic series End Times attacked right-wing eschatology, provoking accusations of abuse, echoing centuries-old libelous imputations, exposing how projection and moral panic affect meaning in photography. European politicians repurposed my images as Nazi propaganda.

These monsters are reflections of our modern anxieties, whose emotionally charged states - grief, fear, defiance - are both performative gesture and earthy embodiment. Once released, the photographs of golems become golems themselves.

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