“Sasha Koozel Reibstein finds comfort in imagining herself as a speck of cosmic dust, as an individually insignificant performer within an infinitely expanding universe. The grandeur of space, its mysteries and its power, are reassuring to her. They are reminders that we are part of a much larger story, that our current earthly states of unrest, division, and trauma are only temporary. Through her sculpture Reibstein visualizes the connections between the earth and the cosmos as interpreted through the body; human experience becomes a conduit between eternities past and future. As a ceramicist, Reibstein fashions her sculpture from earth itself; clay is a naturally occurring soil that is unique in its ability to change states from liquid to solid. This intrinsic alchemy cuts to the core of Reibstein’s practice. Her sculptures are fundamentally rooted in transformation—of the body, mind, universe, and the material itself—and the magic that surrounds the process. They are the products of expertly negotiated dichotomies: earth and space; light and darkness; life and loss; body and mind; control and chaos. She strives for equal parts beauty and grit and the results are dazzling: craggy surfaces accented with psychedelic color, dripping with gold, punctuated by flocked spikes and home-grown crystals. And glitter, tons of (well-researched and meticulously applied) glitter. [1] The work is undeniably visually seductive, but it cuts deeper than that. It manages to elucidate the elemental interconnectedness of all things: the earth, space, and our own bodies are all fundamentally composed of the same atomic base materials.”
