ASCENSION, 67" x 74" x 74" (170cm x 188cm x 188cm), Bronze, 2000

In 1997, I was invited by The Newington Cropsey Foundation to create monuments for the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

I drew from my personal experience growing up in Iran to talk about man's relationship to religion. When I was 11 the Islamic revolution brought the promise of Utopia under a religious society. However, religion soon proved to be as much an oppressor as a liberator. Upon arriving in the West, I was further disenchanted with the stances organized religions seemed to take against each other. Ever since then, I have wondered if it is possible to pursue God without organized religion.

This piece is about the multiplicity of human emotions as pertaining to religion. When one's relationship with God is played out within a religion, one can either find the joy of belonging or the sorrow and anxiety of the community's pressure to conform. Here, the dome is the embodiment of religion. The figure above the dome can be seen as either a joyous man who has found salvation through religion and is elevated by it, or one who has rejected religious dogma and has found his own way to God. (thus residing above the religious space)

Conversely, the figure below is also designed to portray a dichotomy. He can be seen as one who has found shelter in the womb of faith or one who is supressed and trapped by religion. These emotions play out in my daily existence and that's why the two figures are separated by the thinnest of shells.

This sculpture has continued to inspire me and several artwork are directly derived from itsuch as: Agony, Ecstasy, Broken, Prayer, Broken Men, and Bronze Ecstasy