YASSI MAZANDI

After a hygiene horror stay at a motel in 2014, part of Yassi's annual pilgrimage to the Tucson Gem Fair (aka the "Tucson Germ Fair") with a close friend and her son, she became fascinated with microscopic images of various germs, bacteria, viruses, etc, tiny killers...

 

Much as with her fascination for the growth, replication and symmetry of flowers and snowflakes, she found herself "engrossed in and somewhat grossed out by these little players in their own microcosmic universe."

 

What ensued was a new series of images, Germs on Sheets, executed in mixed media on: bed sheets, pillowcases, Italian Army surplus "fart-sacks" (a military term for the mattress cover which envelops an army bed), and hand made Japanese paper sheets.

 

While one or two of these works were inspired by micro-photographs of actual germs, the majority are of her own creation.

 

From a technical perspective, the artist employed inks, dyes, watercolor and correction fluid for the works on paper. One or more of these (inks, dyes and watercolor) media were applied by the artist in various ways to a wet support (whether linen or paper) and left for some hours to "do their own thing", growing as one might imagine a germ or bacteria doing. The artist would then sometimes repeat that "spreading" technique and then add additional detail to a by then drier linen or paper work to achieve her final results.