Episode

Caption "Ben-Ami's remarkable facility with her material compels us to keep looking. She works and welds heavy metal into nearly delicate forms. The leather belt in one work looks supple, the stretched canvas of another piece appears legitimately pliable. You have to look very closely -- almost touch these pieces with your eyes -- to remind yourself they're not really made from leather or tarp.Such an exceptional capacity to transform metal into something else proves an apt visual metaphor for Ben-Ami's project. In the artist's hands, iron shifts shape as easily as our hopes and dreams. Just as we use fantasy to escape the less tolerable clutches of reality, so Ben-Ami imbues her material with the power of transmutation"
By Jessica Dawson, published in The Washington Post, January 6, 2007, from the artist's web site: www.ornabenami.com/