Painting and drawing are a play of relationships. At the most elemental level, my painting is the relationship of one colorspot to another, and the exploration of what happens when they meet. On a larger scale, every colorspot, every individual element of the work of art, relates to the whole. Likewise, we see ourselves in relation to the objects and other people around us, explore our similarities and differences, and interact in significant, very individual ways.  We also relate to the totality of our surroundings, and are constantly redefining ourselves in relation to this whole. Thus we come better to know ourselves and the world around us.

My family's history, and my own, has been one of constant change. The countries in which my family has lived during the past seventy years include Russia (Moscow as well as Siberia), Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Israel, Romania and both coasts of the United States. I was raised by Holocaust survivors. Like theirs, my life has also turned out to be one of nearly constant nomadism, and this transience has been partly responsible for connecting me so deeply with the history of my family, which is represented by the worn and dependable objects that have followed us from country to country.  These objects and photographic images present a solid stability where life otherwise was anything but stable, and a connection to both the myths and realities of the experiences of my family. I have been working on a series of oil paintings that explore these familiar objects and my relationship to them. I have also been creating a series of graphite powder drawings, some of which are based on my family's experience, some on my own, but all of which explore what is, to me, a continuous narrative, which is deeply connected to the mythology of my inner life.

Within my work, I try to embody a felt experience that can be communicated to others. I attempt to encounter the visual world in a way that is informed by thousands of years of the creation of art objects and yet, at the same time, is somehow fresh. My main artistic sources of inspiration include the Fayum Portraits, the Pompeian Frescos, the paintings of Velazquez and Chardin, the drawings of Dickinson and Seurat and the work of contemporary artists such as Antonio Lopéz Garcia and Emily Nelligan. I have always been drawn predominantly to intimately sized works of art.  I want to make a drawing or painting that I can hold in my hands the way that I would hold a beloved book  Beyond the attempt at an honest response to the motif is the music and poetry of form, color, gesture, and intensity of surface, and the exploration of these elements as metaphors for the human condition. There comes a point when a painting or drawing moves beyond mere competency, when a quickening occurs and an energy snaps to life. This is what I am after.

born: 1980, Tel Aviv, Israel

education

Brandeis University, BA Fine Art and Psychology, 2002
Jerusalem Studio School, Master Class, 2005
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, MFA, 2007

selected awards/honors

First Prize, "Black is the Color," The Plastic Club, Philadelphia, PA, 2007
Deborah Josepha Cohen Award in Drawing, Brandeis University, MA, 2002
Remis Art Education Grant, Brandeis University, MA, 2001

selected group shows

Artists' House Gallery: Emerging Artists Exhibition,  Philadelphia, PA, 2009
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: PAFA Juried Alumni Exhibition, Philadelphia, PA, 2008
Johnson State College: Young Philadelphia Realists, Johnson, VT, 2008
Philadelphia Sketch Club: 144th Annual Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings, Philadelphia, PA, 2007