Ancient Threads / New Tapestries
The various series-in-progress here are part of my ongoing quest to develop a visual language that both participates in a living Jewish tradition and rejects the monolithic narratives about Jewish identity and values propagated by many contemporary institutions that claim authority over that tradition.
Rekuerdo/Olvido
The idea that holding onto memory as tightly as you can is the way to affirm life runs deep in Jewish thought, and also in much of the approach to growing up that I absorbed as a third-generation Holocaust survivor. This work is part of my exploration of what would happen if, instead, we understood forgetting rather than remembering as a way to embody love.
I created these pieces by layering paper, olive oil, and graphite on newsprint. I placed the resulting “ephemeral paintings” against a backlit window and photographed them. In some cases, I then digitally layered multiple photographs on top of each other. The text in the pieces is in Ladino (also known as Judeo-Spanish), my grandparents’ home language. I’ve found that Ladino has more satisfactory phrasing for “to forget” as in “to let go” than does Biblical Hebrew.
Olvido/Rekuerdo, 2025. Ephemeral collage with vegetable oil, graphite, and scotch tape on paper against gloomy-day window, approx. 16" x 12".
Rekuerdo/Olvido, 2025. Ephemeral painting with vegetable oil and graphite on paper against window, 18" x 24".
Floating, 2025. Ephemeral collage with paper, sharpie, and olive oil on window.
Floating II, 2025. Digitally collaged photographs of olive oil paintings on window.
Sehora III, 2025. Digitally collaged photographs of olive oil paintings on window.
Sehora II, 2025. Digitally collaged photographs of olive oil painting on window.
Sehora, 2025. Digitally collaged photographs of olive oil paintings on window.
Untitled (Well), 2025. Digitally collaged drawings with pencil and olive oil.
Untitled (Well 2), 2025. Digitally collaged drawings with pencil and olive oil. The text reads, "No es sovre ti de akabar el trabajo / Tampoko sos livre de abandonarlo," which is a Ladino translation of a verse from Pirkei Avot -- "It's not your job to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
Monument to Forgetting
To create this, I drew four places I have called home, from memory, on plywood panels. In painting them, I emphasized the inaccuracies in my remembered versions of these places. The piece is 8 feet high by 2 feet wide, and its shape is inspired by Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz’s “Monument Against Fascism.”
Monument to Forgetting, 2025. Gouache and oil on plywood, 96" x 24".
Detail: "Remembering/Forgetting AB," 24" x 24" section of full piece.
Detail: "Remembering/Forgetting Gretna Green Way," 24" x 24" section of full piece.
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view with pieces from Rekuerdo/Olvido series
Year After Year
Each of these paintings is loosely connected to—and reflecting on or critiquing a dominant interpretation of—a part of the Jewish calendar year. I created each of them at the specific times of year to which they refer. I will update this series as we cycle through the rest of 5786.
Diaspora, 2025. Gouache and colored pencil on Arches paper, 30" x 22".
Neilah, 2025. Photograph of an ephemeral piece in gouache, acrylic, oil, and embroidery on Tyvek and Rives BFK paper, 24" x 18." This painting was partially inspired by the last section of this essay by Natasha Gill.
Atonement, 2025. Gouache on Rives BFK paper, 30" x 22".
Harvest, 2025. Gouache and colored pencil on Tyvek, 36" x 24".
What Do The Birds Think?, 2025. Gouache and colored pencil on Tyvek, 36" x 24". This piece was inspired by a poem of the same title by my friend Aviva Zeldman.
Ongoingness
A collection of paintings playing with repetitions in events, burials, phenotypes, and DNA across time.
Assimilation, 2025. Oil and collage on canvas, 20" x 20".
Us, 2025. Pencil, acrylic medium, and oil on panel, 6" x 6".
My Archaeopteryx, 2025. Pencil, gouache, colored pencil, and oil on panel, 12" x 12".