Artist’s Statement: One day in class, during a critique in which I displayed a Jewish-themed drawing, my professor said to me, “I Googled ‘Jewish art,’ and most of what I saw was Holocaust-related; that seems to be the ‘thing’ for Jewish artists. Are you going to work with that theme?”
Words cannot express the extent to which that bothered me. Why should the world’s view of the Jewish people be that of a formerly oppressed nation, not a culture that is rich in beliefs, traditions and Torah values? And how come the general population has no idea what Judaism entails? Why have we become “the people who died in the Holocaust” and “the people who don’t eat bacon”? With my art, I seek to change that perception, expand people’s horizons, and create works that encapsulate the Jewish culture and religion.
