Studio Updates↘︎

Five new artworks, including one oil painting and four collages will be included in Our Choice-an exhibition of artwork protesting the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Opening celebrations and an artist talk will be held Friday, April 28th, 2023 from 5pm-8pm at Arc Gallery and Educational Foundation in Chicago. The show will be up until May 20th, 2023. It was curated by Virginia Mallon.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE GALLERY AND EXHIBITION

“A fragment of the artist’s family, or its totality, can stand in for any family, but so, too, this anonymous family (if that is what it is) can stand in for the artist’s family and for all families. “Freed from the burdens of authenticity, the ordinary past is transformed into a vernacular mythology. [The image] represents the intersections and contradictions between historic documentation, memory, and nostalgia… refer[ing] to both the tantalizing promise that emanates from lost treasures and the maddening reality that no matter what details survive from the past, they can only ever show us the ghosts of the glories and tragedies which preceded our own.” What is true of the artist’s engagement with human experience is exponentially true of the ghost-filled reality of the Jewish experience.”—Robert Bettman

To view the online exhibition

Published in conjunction with the Jewish Authenticity and Identity Exhibition, the catalog features the paintings that were shown at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. in 2021 (including my own!). Curator Ori Z. Soltes organized the show alongside Robert Bettman on behalf of Day Eight.

Selected to participate in the 2022 CONNECT Virtual Residency, alongside artists from Chicago and beyond. Sessions focus on helping emerging artists advance their studio and professional practices. A reception featuring work made during the residency will be held at Joplin Marley Studios on June 3rd, 2022.

“Brittle Anchors” and “Postcards from Camelot” were both featured in the second issue of Ekphrasis Magazine, released in February of 2021. Ekphrasis is a literary magazine founded by Columbia University graduates to publish works at the intersection of visual and literary art. We hope to foster experimentation and conversation between artists in all disciplines, fields, and media within the pages of a single publication.

“In lieu of Testimony: No. 4” was awarded the alliance of the swope Award of Distinction by curator Louis Cox., it is featured alongside “Ado Among the Ruins” and other midwestern artworks at the Swope Art Museum in Terra Haute, Indiana. The show celebrates creativity across middle America.

The 76th Annual Wabash Valley Exhibition is open to the public until January 10th, 2021 ( local covid-19 regulations permitting).

What do you feel is integral to the work of an artist? 

Curiosity. You don’t make any progress if you are unwilling to learn new things or change little parts of what you are doing. I am always asking new questions about my work, even when those lead me to make really bad art. The goal of art, in my mind, is to empower us and our audiences to investigate some aspect of the world around them.

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What’s the best piece of artistic advice you’ve been given?

I have been lucky enough to have a lot of really fantastic, supportive teachers. Two things stand out, one is a quote by Chuck Close that turned up in a powerpoint in one of my college classes: “Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work”. Basically that not every moment in the studio is driven by magic. Sometimes, art is work. The other really hit home during graduate school. An adjunct advisor (who has since become a huge sensation in LA) told me that he waited tables for ten years before getting his first real art job. And he told me that while that was frustrating, his lack of professional advancement didn’t keep him from persevering in the studio. The work drove him, and eventually he got the jobs and shows and press that he wanted. He really emphasised that it is totally valid to work retail, or be a bartender, or drive for Uber while you build your art career. If you are making work, and advancing in the studio, you have an art career.

Read the full interview here.