PAUSE: Jewish Heritage Month - Ways of Being

Yona Verwer, Windows at 81 Leonard Gallery, NYC - Hebban Olla Vogala #1 and 2

Four of my artworks in this exhibition: In celebration of Jewish Heritage Month, 81 Leonard Gallery is pleased to present PAUSE: Jewish Heritage Month/Ways of Being, in collaboration with the Jewish Art Salon.

On view from May 2nd through June 12th, 2022.

81 Leonard Street New York, NY 10013

Featuring the work of six local Jewish artists, PAUSE: Jewish Heritage Month/Ways of Being pays homage to the multi-dimensional nature of Jewish identity and the varying, and often unexpected, ways in which Jewishness manifests in visual art.

This exhibition is curated by Hannah Eve Rothbard and Goldie Gross, and is supported by a grant from CANVAS. Featured artists: Tobi Kahn, Orli Swergold, Yona Verwer, Ali Shrago-Spechler, Joel Silverstein and Richard McBee.

The work of Yona Verwer and Ali Shrago-Spechler, on display for the second two weeks of the exhibition, both probe their respective personal and cultural histories in attempts to reconcile questions of belonging. Verwer’s paintings Hebban Olla Vogala 1 and Hebban Olla Vogala 2 reference the first three words of one of the earliest texts in Old Dutch, which translates, according to the artist, as “all the birds have made their nest except for you and me.” A Dutch expatriate and Jewish convert, Verwer crafts a language of recurrent symbols, including submarines representative of Jonah’s whale, to tell an ongoing story of spatial, spiritual, and cultural transition.

Shrago-Spechler’s work considers transition through the use of cardboard, a material which embodies impermanence and exchange. Using cardboard to construct various tchotchkes, photographs, ritual objects, and books pulled from her family oral history and archives pertaining to Ashkenazi Jewry, Shrago-Spechler highlights the displacement of European Jewish cultural heritage during the Holocaust on a large-scale and individual level.