We are all different as human beings and we all experience our lives a bit differently. However, there always seem to be  a few common denominators to all these life experiences; even if we can't put our finger on it.  Something within us reacts to that common denominator when it senses it. I grew up in a muslim household, got a scholarship to study in a foreign land (USA) and I am married to a jewish woman. What some may see as a culture-shocked background I see as delicious experiences.  When I approach a new work I know that I am influenced by the contents of a bag that I carry.  The contents of this bag contain a mix of a confused, rich, colorful, distant, ancient, new, western, eastern, naive and perhaps educated background. Yet, still, in the end, I know that it will all distill into something all can understand and relate to. Going to a muslim wedding in Tangier in the summer and two months later attending  a  Bar Mitzvah in Connecticut can do wonders for for an attempt at deciphering the nature of this creature called human-kind.

 

     Whether I am tackling a serious, sad, violent, disturbing or joyous topic I can't help but introduce to it a  pinch of a some of that bag's contents. which I hope lends some wry humor and and an angle of the absurd. My goal is that by attempting such mixtures the final work my express what mean by that " common denominator " that touches us all.