The Goal of Knowledge is Not Knowing
The Baal Shem Tov
about the art
I paint from the inside out, oftentimes starting on a journey without knowing the destination. Art for me is more than visual expression; it is a process of meditation and listening. I paint with acrylics and ink on canvas and use a very simple palette.
Most of my life I’ve had a sense that at the boundaries of what we know is a certain mystery that calls out to us. We may sense it at times, but we neither can fully know it nor can we definitely name it. When I stand before a canvas and paint, I often try to tap into that mystery.
I hope my paintings can be seen as both universal and particular, that they can be seen as simple pieces of beauty, mysterious yet also holding within them meanings that can resonate in different ways with different viewers and listeners.
My art is often informed by my relationship to the Torah, as Jews call the Hebrew Bible. For over 40 years I have been engaged in a very slow and close reading of the Torah, both individually and with others. I have come to see the Torah as bearing the possibility of revealing itself in surprising ways. Through painting, I often embark on a visual conversation with the ideas of the ancient text, exploring such themes as the creation of order out of chaos, the creation of light, and the idea that the world as we know it was shaped by language. My work is also often informed by the fact that the Hebrew language came into being at the time of transition from pictographic to phonetic writing and the idea that each of the Hebrew letters most likely holds an essential symbolic meaning, meanings that perhaps we no longer fully know.
My paintings are a visual extension of the Jewish interpretive tradition of sacred texts called Midrash. The Torah, as an ancient text with its sparse and evocative language, has led to centuries of learning and probing not only by Jews, but by Christians and Moslems too. Throughout the millennia people have sought to understand both what is said and what is left unsaid — in the letters, words, and stories of the Torah and in the silences in between words.
I also honor the ancient Jewish tradition of creating art that is non-representational, following an interpretation of the Torah’s prohibition against the creation of images. This idea, embedded in both Jewish and Islamic culture, honors the fact that life is never static. Despite our attempts to steady it, control it, categorize it, or name it, in the end life is fluid and elusive. All that remains is the mystery that some call G-d or יהוה.
I hope that viewers might see a certain simple beauty in my art that touches the mystery within all of us, yielding even a fleeting moment of awe or wonder.