Violence is key to Shay Arick’s practice who employs photography, sculpture, performance, video and drawing as means to understand what motivates people to enact it. Born in Israel, the now Brooklyn-based artist has experienced the lasting effects of growing up surrounded by decades of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and hence strives to make work that fosters empathy and dialogue. Often taking cues from archives or historical sources, Arick restages or re-interprets iconic cultural imagery and historical moments to expose the absurdity in the constructs and taboos that can drive socio-political conflicts. Whether through composite photographs of hands throwing rocks during armed conflicts, a body of work concerned with violence perpetrated against animals, or a series exploring violence and masculinity through the biblical story of David and Goliath, his work invites us to reflect and contemplate, from the perspective of both victim and perpetrator, about a brutality that appears to be an inevitable condition of our humanity.