This life-size pen and ink drawing of bookshelves is based on my parents' idiosyncratic library and captures a particular time and place, now history itself. The bookshelf on the left has titles on Judaism, Jewish identity, Jewish history, the Holocaust, Israel, liturgy, literature, poetry, theology, spirituality, and antisemitism. The bookshelf on the right focuses on post-war American do-it-yourself domestic themes: self-help, self-reliance, self-improvement, home improvement, homemaking, heath, nutrition, and language. A fern sits atop the shelf of Jewish books. Through text, this piece reflects on identity and the American Jewish experience in a post-Holocaust era. This drawing brings together my interest in domestic space, gender roles, and experience as an American child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors.

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In a culture hyper-saturated by electronic imagery, I use traditional materials - quill pens and bottles of ink - to create large-scale images, exploring the processes of observation and mark making. Through continual acts of observation translated through the hand, I describe a response to my subject matter that is as contemporary as my means are old-fashioned. This personal scrutiny, through drawing of my immediate surroundings, becomes an examination of a larger contemporary experience.

In the 16th century, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel created a golem (a clay figure brought to life by magic) to defe the Prague Jewish ghetto from the pogroms. Once, the Rabbi forgot to deactivate the golem before the Sabbath ar went on a violent rampage. The golem was destroyed, and the remains stored in the attic of the Old New Synagog where it could be restored if needed. Golems can be made from any raw material. My piece was built with LEGO bricks. It expands on that tradition of having a protector ready when the Jewish people need to defend themselve: This tiny figure is certainly easy enough to destroy and rebuild if / when it goes berserk.

Eight Approaches is a sequence of eight paintings, hung in a row, but it is really about the spaces in-between the paintings. Consequently, it is about the spaces in-between people and ideas. Taken together, the eight paintings nearly coalesce into a narrative, reminding us of side-by-side triptych paintings, comic-book panels or film stills, and of course the eight-armed hanukkiah.

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Judaism loves complexity. We love to answer a question with a parable - from Hassidic Tales to Kafka and Midrash - so we can enter and engage. I hope viewers add their own stories, weaving, sorting and encountering a dialogue about the diversity and complexity of identity, community, and tradition.

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My paintings have been grappling with two themes: light and time. Light is how we see and try to understand. Time is about how we change. Art allows us to hold multiple, competing truths. I paint people over long stretches of time by layering thick paint. Each daub holds a memory, and as they overlap, you can see time elapse. These two themes converge in Hanukkah, marking the passing of time with light. This giant, almost-but-not-quite hanukkiah begins by using the teachings, rituals, and traditions of the holiday as a lens to think about art and ourselves.

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