The “Covid–Corona” pandemic and the limitations it brought, caused me, to start a dialogue between myself and my favorite raw material: glass. This dialogue generated COVITRUM, a work that shows a series of unrecognizable portraits, without distinction in gender, age, skin color, or country of origin. The faces are universal and at the same time they are all different: the masks they wear reflect each person's need to express their personality and individualism.

I created thirteen different, man-sized portraits of 30/30 cm (approximate) with masks, and five, smaller sized children’s portraits; eighteen faces in total. The number eighteen was chosen because in gematria – the assignation of numeric values to Hebrew letters – the number eighteen means "chai" - "life".  

I chose to keep the faces almost identical; they do not show identity or gender but only express emotions. Emotions that any viewer who contemplates this work will find, and that will humanize the masked faces. The masks, however, are all very different. I treat each face and its mask as a whole, but allows the viewers to switch masks in their imagination.

The mask is a tool of pretence and protection, and it allows introspection; it gives me a creative space in which I choose whether to hide or to reveal identity or feelings. I chose to tell my story on each mask. But, as always in art, the viewers can tell themselves completely different stories.