Sandy Bleifer

Paper Sandy Bleifer

The figure in flight conjures up a familiar female archetype - an angel - an arbiter between human suffering and transcendence. The use of the female figure - long a staple of Western artistic iconography - may be interpreted in a contemporary context of women's issues or as a matriarchal figure embodying the world's suffering. The "Shrine of the Angels" series utilizes color photo Xerox printouts of the source image for the Angels, several incorporating a lighting element and on a scale that can collectively be installed as a shrine.

These life-size female figures gesturing upward in supplication depict a range of human injuries that we endure. They have taken on a religious connotation when installed in churches and function as transcendence and closure in the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Memorial Project when the artist has included them in that project.