Gilded Fracture (Reflect/Repair/Renew), 2022

Gilded Fracture (reflect/repair/renew), 2022, was commissioned by the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco for the exhibition Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community, and Ourselves. Gilded Fracture is a process-based work: an embodiment of the philosophy of “tikkun” in the form of a full-length mirror, delivered to the artist’s studio broken and meticulously repaired and gilded. The piece also embraces the ancient Japanese technique of kintsugi – elevating imperfection by illuminating repairs with precious metals. The painstaking labor of repair and restoration – removing minuscule glass shards, gluing breaks, and applying delicate, fragile gold leaf – is a process that requires utmost attention and care; an apt metaphor for the transformational process of healing and restoration that had been at the center of both Thomas’s professional and personal life at the time of the piece’s creation. Gilded Fracture reflects the many manifestations of “tikkun” in the exhibition and invites the viewer to consider their own acts of care, repair, and restoration, with the understanding that repair is never perfect, and that healing is a process that takes time.

Exhibitions:
Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community, and Ourselves, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA. | Curator: Heidi Rabben