ABOUT ME AND MY FAUNA

 

  

 

Welcome to a world where imagination and craftsmanship converge.

I’m Sharon, a sculptor and graphic designer with over a decade of experience, dedicated to creating unique, hand-crafted hybrid sculptures that challenge the boundaries of form and perception. My journey as an artist is driven by a fascination with the unexpected and the uncharted, blending elements from the natural world to craft creatures that exist in the liminal space between the familiar and the fantastical.

I graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. My final project in the Department of Visual Communication at Bezalel was awarded honors, showcasing my unique approach to design that often involves hybrid concepts. For this project, I created an interactive, hybrid printed cookbook that merges two books back-to-back: one from my father and the other from my mother. My parents, divorced and of Moroccan descent, underwent a particularly traumatic divorce process that lasted over a decade. The book attempts to bring order to my understanding of my parents' behavior during my childhood and confronts them with the same questions, with answers found in both books. It also features identical Moroccan dishes, each prepared in my parents' unique style and technique—a metaphor for the ways our parents "feed" us, both literally and figuratively, to foster empathy toward their choices.

When I look back at all of my work, I see a central theme: duality. Somehow, everything I've ever created has led me to make these sculptures.

Each sculpture in Fauna, from 'Horse + Insect' to 'Carnivores Fruit,' is meticulously crafted, blending unexpected elements into new forms. The process involves not just shaping materials but also creating narratives—stories of creatures that might exist in an alternate reality where nature is reimagined through the lens of the surreal.

I use unconventional techniques and materials to bring these hybrids to life. My sculptures are created using a mix of baking soda with super glue, paper, gravel, polyurethane, epoxy, and thick metal wires. My technique involves sprinkling powder and glue together to create a very strong, hard material, which I sculpt using a DREMEL tool. I reinforce the structure with metal wires and make polyurethane parts cast in silicone molds that I create from the sculptures themselves. These elements are combined with the other materials, and I carefully texture the surfaces before finishing each piece with three layers of paint: a white primer, lacquer paint, and a final coat of matte or glossy lacquer (with UV protection for durability).

Each sculpture is a one-of-a-kind piece, always unique in its angles and colors, embodying both absurdity and beauty, inviting the viewer to question what they see.

Join me as we explore this vibrant, grotesque, and humorous world of sculptural fauna—creatures born from both the mind’s eye and the hands' work, each with its own unique character and story.