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Category: Visual Arts

Sketching historic shuls

Ben and Carla Levinson (photo by Sam Margolis)

With the speed of a street-corner caricaturist yet the precision of someone who seemingly misses nothing, Ben Levinson has for decades been capturing the cityscapes of the many places to which he has traveled with his wife, Carla. No pencil, no erasing. Just a black ink pen and a small sketchbook.

“My architectural career taught me to sketch quickly and furiously, and I am able to see details that most would not see,” Levinson told the Independent in an interview earlier this fall.

During these adventures, Levinson has sketched everything of architectural interest to him: churches, cathedrals, mosques, pyramids and, of course, synagogues, while Carla would station herself at a café.

image - Synagogue at Tomar, Portugal. Sketch by Ben Levinson
Synagogue at Tomar, Portugal. Sketch by Ben Levinson.

By the time she was done with her coffee and croissant, Ben would have a complete rendering to show her. During the infrequent occasions she would finish first, incomplete drawings would be filled out when they reached their hotel.

The alacrity, accuracy and artistry of the sketches were at times the envy of those whom they encountered on their travels.

“We met artists whose wives and partners waited all too patiently and were ready to move on, whereas Ben was long done,” Carla said.

After looking through Ben’s sketchbooks one day, Carla suggested he do a show devoted to synagogues. Carla, who ran Victoria’s Gallery 1248, helped curate the selection of sketches that appeared at the Wings of Peace Gallery at Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El from Sept. 4 through Yom Kippur. Now those sketches have been compiled into a book which is tentatively titled In Search of Identity: The Story of the Wandering Jew.

The book’s 49 sketches transport the viewer throughout the old and the new worlds. Many of the sketches are connected by the common experience of Jews moving on because of antisemitic treatment, despite centuries of coexistence in a community.

The figurative journey, which includes interiors and exteriors and is really the result of several holidays the Levinsons took over the span of two decades, sets off in Toledo, Spain, home to one of the few remaining synagogues left after the Spanish Inquisition scattered Jews throughout Europe and the Americas. Levinson’s exhibit and book spend a lot of time in Sephardi lands: a 14th-century Moorish-style synagogue in Cordoba; a tiny shul in Tomar, Portugal, the only pre-Renaissance temple in the country; larger houses of worship in Morocco, home to the largest Jewish population in the Arab world; and, finally, to the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, completed in 1675.

Poignant reminders of the once-thriving Jewish communities of Eastern Europe follow. Levinson leads the viewer through Berlin, Prague and Budapest, along with artistic reconstructions of the Terezin sleeping barracks and an ancient dig in Vienna.

image - Templo Libertad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sketch by Ben Levinson
Templo Libertad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sketch by Ben Levinson.

The voyage shifts to France, Italy and Scandinavia, with the majestic Marais synagogue in Paris, the synagogue at the Museum of Jewish Life in Trieste and the Gothenburg Synagogue, the scene of a firebomb attack in 2017.

Levinson also presents active scenes of a crowd forming outside a Venice synagogue on a sunny Shabbat morning, passersby in front of an Antwerp temple and a sea of bicycles by the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen.

The visual trip wraps up with drawings from Mexico City and the Byzantine-style building of Libertad Synagogue in Buenos Aires.

Born in Medicine Hat, Alta., in 1942, Levinson graduated from the University of Manitoba’s architectural program. In 1966, he moved to Victoria and worked for various firms before starting his 30-year private practice as president of Benjamin Bryce Levinson Architects in 1980. In addition to leading his practice, he continued sketching and showing his work at various venues, including the Architectural Institute of British Columbia and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Levinson was instrumental in restoring Congregation Emanu-El in the early 1980s. When he arrived in town, he felt an initial disappointment upon seeing the synagogue with “its pink stucco, balcony balustrade pickets, missing fence and hidden dome ceiling.” He helped the synagogue’s leadership in obtaining grants and helped steer the building and fundraising committees to get the money necessary to revitalize the region’s most historic Jewish building.

Small Town Architect, the name of his first book, documents his 40-year career in architectural design and recounts his travels and artistic endeavours. His work can be found throughout Victoria and in numerous communities throughout the province; in elementary schools, municipal halls, grocery stores and restaurants, among other buildings.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Format ImagePosted on December 13, 2019December 12, 2019Author Sam MargolisCategories Visual ArtsTags architecture, art, Ben Levinson, Emanu-El, history, Judaism, travel
People and places of Cuba

People and places of Cuba

Lorne Greenberg’s solo show, Cuba, comprises photographic compositions, such as this one. (photos by Lorne Greenberg)

The origins of Lorne Greenberg’s solo photography exhibition Cuba can be traced back more than 35 years. “I had my MFA in photography from the University of Arizona in 1983,” he told the Independent. “In 1984, I began photographing Mexican street art.”

At first, he photographed on the American side of the border, but later visited Mexico several times, taking pictures of streets and buildings in many Mexican border towns. “I have an affinity for Latin American art,” he said. “I also read many Latin American writers.”

After a few years, though, Greenberg turned his artistic eye to other interests and new subjects. He only started refocusing on Mexico five years ago.

“In 2014, I began to photograph in Mexico again,” he said. “This time, I was interested in streets, buildings and yards, objects as artifacts of culture. I see it as the archeology of Man, a study of Man in his environment through the observance of objects and artifacts. There is no sky in my Mexican photos, but walls and doors and windows. Colours, shapes and lines, and where things are in relation to each other.”

He wanted to dig deeper in that direction, but, having been in Mexico multiple times, he turned to Cuba. “I had never been to Cuba before. I wanted to see it,” he said. “I heard that [Barack] Obama was going there, and I decided that I’d better go before Americanization.”

In spring 2016, Greenberg flew to Cuba for the first time. “Just me, my camera and my backpack. I came a few days after Obama left. I was there for about 10 days and visited three cities: Havana, Santa Clara and Trinidad.”

He wandered the streets and photographed doors and walls and windows, but with a new mode of expression. “I started seeing people,” he said. “Before, there were hardly any people in my photos. Now, I wanted to photograph them as part of the streetscape.”

He continued his Cuban exploration in 2018, on his second trip to the country. This time, he stayed exclusively in Havana. “When I was there, I ate, slept, photographed and listened to jazz,” he recalled. “It’s a vibrant place, with music a prevalent part of life.”

Again, he roamed the streets, without a plan, photographing houses and people. “Nothing is staged in my photos; nobody posed,” he said. “I just waited until I had a perfect image, and then I took it. I wasn’t trying to make a statement, didn’t have any preconceived idea. I just wanted to find what is there, discover the relationship between people and places, the coherence of individuals and their building backdrops. If some people didn’t want to be photographed, they would say it, and I didn’t take their pictures, but that happened only three times.”

photo - Lorne Greenberg in Italy
Lorne Greenberg in Italy. (photo by Lorne Greenberg)

In selecting the images to include in his solo show, from the hundreds he took in Cuba, he said, “I didn’t want to show just 10 or 15 large pictures. A single large image has a privileged status, and I wanted to create an experience of Cuba, to show people what I saw.”

Therefore, he compiled his photographs into compositions, which made it possible to increase the number of different images on display. Each composition is more than a collection of individual photos – it is a work of art on its own.

“There are 102 different pictures in the show, combined into eight compositions,” Greenberg said. “At first, I considered each composition as a tic-tac-toe grid, but it didn’t work. It was too orderly, too tight, didn’t give the sense of Cuba. Then I thought about the sculptures of Alexander Calder. I changed the layout of my compositions, opened them up, created a flow. They are not individual photographs anymore. They are installations, and they incorporate the gallery space as part of the experience. Each composition has a certain colour scheme, and its lines and shapes create a whole, simultaneously dynamic and static, random and structured.”

The arrangement of the compositions was as creative an endeavour as was taking photographs. “It was fun moving pictures around, seeing different possibilities. I could have done it for much longer, if I didn’t have a deadline for the show,” he joked.

Greenberg’s Cuban compositions reflect the political reality of the country. The lively colours of the buildings preen under the heat and light of the sun, while simultaneously exposing the peeling paint, dirty or moldy walls, and the rusty metal of fences and shutters, which hint at the poverty that exists in the country.

“I see beauty, aesthetics and humanity,” said Greenberg. “Poverty is more in the ethical dimension, and everything for me is in the aesthetic world.”

The show Cuba opened on Oct. 24 at the Zack Gallery and continues until Nov. 24. The opening reception was held on Oct 30. For more information on Greenberg’s work, visit lornegreenbergphotography.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on November 8, 2019November 6, 2019Author Olga LivshinCategories Visual ArtsTags Cuba, Lorne Greenberg, photography, Zack Gallery
Trees bring Zack to life

Trees bring Zack to life

Michael Seelig is donating the proceeds from his exhibit Trees to the Zack Gallery. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Trees, Michael Seelig’s new solo photography exhibit at the Zack Gallery, opened last week. It is a fundraiser for the gallery, which is located in the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Such philanthropic initiatives “are of ultimate importance to the gallery and the community, as everybody wins when the gallery is well-supported,” said Zack director Linda Lando. “We have approximately three benefits a year, and they come in different ways. Sometimes, they’re initiated by the artist, sometimes by myself or another staff member of the JCC.”

Seelig’s decision to donate all the proceeds came from the heart, and it’s not the first time. His previous show at the Zack, which was held five years ago, was also a benefit. “This is my way of contributing to the JCC,” he said in an interview with the Independent. “We have a longstanding connection to the centre. My wife was president of the JCC some time ago, and we’ve given several donations to the community over the years.”

Unlike his previous show, which focused on architectural images – Seelig was an architect before he retired – this show is all about trees. A cornucopia of greens dominates the gallery walls.

“When Linda asked me to do a show this year, I didn’t have much in mind,” he said. “I started going through my photographs, selected the best 20, and then realized that eight of them were photos of trees. Looking back, I’ve always photographed trees. Maybe I have an affinity for trees. So, I thought I’d make it the theme of this entire show.”

photo - “Garden Kyoto” by Michael Seelig
“Garden Kyoto” by Michael Seelig.

Seelig has been drawn to trees and their unique charm for a long time. “I think my love of trees comes from my childhood, when I was growing up in Israel,” he said. “Jewish people are the only ones I know who have a holiday dedicated to trees: Tu b’Shevat. During that holiday, we cherish trees, plant them, take care of them, so they can take care of us. That tradition probably influenced me from a young age to love trees and photograph them. I take photos of trees wherever I travel.”

In the Zack exhibition, there are pictures of trees from Israel and Scotland, Canada and Japan.

“There is a book I read recently,” Seelig said, “called The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben. He is a German forester and writer and he knows trees. He says trees form communities. They communicate with each other and with us. It was a fascinating book, and I agree with the author; his book inspired me. Have you noticed that old stumps sprout new growth sometimes? That is because there are other trees around. Trees are life-givers; they create the air we breathe. Without trees, there would be no life on earth.… In Canada, and particularly in British Columbia, we often take trees for granted. Most of us do not pause to look at them and admire their beauty, solidity and permanence. We forget that, without trees, our planet cannot survive. This show pays homage to trees in many parts of the world.”

Seelig’s trees are all different; each one has its own shape and personality. Some are gnarled and twisted, while others stretch up in straight lines.

“I like it that they don’t talk to me,” he joked. “Trees are my models, but they’re more obedient than people when it comes to posing for a photo. I can take my time snapping pictures of trees. They are perfect photography objects. A tree just stands there. You can walk around it, see it from 360 degrees or from underneath. And every view is different. You can’t do this with a person.”

In addition to Seelig’s photographs of trees, the show includes several watercolours, most of which he painted specifically for this exhibit. Only two small works are exceptions. “When I was looking through my archives in preparation for this show, I found a small painting, created by my father in 1940. He painted a street in Haifa, and there is a tree in the image. The second painting is mine; I painted it in 2010, also in Haifa. Seventy years passed between these two paintings, but their colour schemes are surprisingly similar. And there are trees in both paintings.”

The sizes of the images on display vary greatly. While Seelig’s father’s painting would fit in a school notebook, and most of the photographs are the perfect size for a family home, a huge triptych on canvas of one of his Kyoto garden photos would enliven a hotel foyer or a corporate conference room. “I invited some designers to the show,” Seelig said. “Maybe one of them would like it.”

Seelig’s approach to photography is consistently organic. He doesn’t edit his photos with Photoshop, doesn’t even crop them.

“My pictures are exactly what I see,” he said. “And now you see them, too. There are other photographers who manipulate their photos with editing software, many of them wonderful artists, but I don’t do that. I don’t call myself an artist either, even though I use my creativity for many things in my life. I used artistic judgment for my work as an architect, before I retired. Now, I make greeting cards and wedding invitations with my photographs and my paintings. I illustrated a couple of children’s books, written by my daughter and her husband. Even making dinner for our friends is a form of art for me.”

The Trees exhibit runs until Oct. 20.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on October 4, 2019October 2, 2019Author Olga LivshinCategories Visual ArtsTags environment, Michael Seelig, painting, philanthropy, photography, trees, Zack Gallery
About the cover art – Rosh Hashanah 2019

About the cover art – Rosh Hashanah 2019

This year’s Jewish Independent Rosh Hashanah cover photo features a bumble bee on a heartleaf oxeye daisy flower – it was taken in Saanich, B.C., by David Fraser. Many native bumble bees are in decline, a concerning trend given the role they play in pollination of plants, including many food crops. Pesticides, habitat loss and introduced bee parasites and diseases are thought to play a role in this decline.

photo - Rosh Hashanah 2019 cover, by David Fraser

Apples are one of the main symbolic foods we eat on Rosh Hashanah, as we wish for a sweet year, with the help of some honey. Apples are the fruit of choice for this wish perhaps because Rosh Hashanah coincides with the sixth day of creation, when humans – Adam and Eve – were created and they ate the fruit (apple) of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. It could also be that apples symbolize the relationship between God and the Jewish people, as poeticized in the Song of Songs, or that the Zohar (kabbalah) describes paradise as a holy apple orchard.

Regardless of the reason for the fruit selection, apple production is dependent on bees and other pollinators. It would be fitting then for us to wish for more than a sweet, fruitful year, when we are dipping our apple slices into honey. We might consider our role in the decline of not only the bumble bee populations but of the environment at large, and what we can do to reverse it.

Format ImagePosted on September 20, 2019February 5, 2020Author The Editorial BoardCategories Visual ArtsTags bees, British Columbia, David Fraser, environment, Judaism, Rosh Hashanah, Saanich
Marriage no fairy tale

Marriage no fairy tale

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” by Lilian Broca is part of the exhibit Brides: Portrait of a Marriage, which is at the Italian Cultural Centre’s Il Museo until Sept. 30.

In most romance novels and fairy tales, a love story ends in a wedding and the couple lives “happily ever after.” In real life, it’s not that simple. Marriage has its challenges.

The show Brides: Portrait of a Marriage, which opened at the Italian Cultural Centre’s Il Museo in Vancouver this summer, examines some of the aspects of marriage that fairy tales purposefully omit. The show incorporates the works of several local artists in different media: textile art by Linda Coe, photography by Grace Gordon-Collins, drawings by Jewish community member Lilian Broca and a tapestry by fellow Jewish community member Barbara Heller.

“I always wanted a show about brides,” Angela Clarke, curator and director of Il Museo, told the Independent. “We have weddings at the centre almost every week. There is so much energy, so many emotions. But the Roman goddess of marriage, Juno, was not a happy woman. Hers was not a happy marriage, and the controversy attracted me.”

Brides is part of the museum’s Gendered Voices series, and looks at marriage from a woman’s perspective.

“This exhibition places the institution of marriage under the looking glass,” said Clarke. “Each participating artist tackles the deep psychological complexity and immense social pressure involved in a traditional marriage. Historical perspectives and family dynamics, personal reflections and the impact of feminism are explored in the show.”

Each artist contributed her own personal outlook. Coe’s fabric panels belong to her Dirty Laundry series. Colourful and sophisticated-looking hangings were all created from fabric snatches that were once parts of women’s dowries, used and reused for several generations before they ended up in the artist’s stockpile.

“The eight fabric panels represent eight stages of a woman’s life,” explained Clarke. “Each one incorporates relevant texts from Renaissance romance novels and etiquette manuals. In the 16th century, such manuals were very popular in Italy, especially among the middle classes. They were written to instruct young brides in the proper comportment, in the ways to become a successful bride and mother.”

In addition, those eight panels reference the eight requisite parts of a romance novel, from the Middle Ages to the modern Avon romances. “Those stages have names, the same names as the panels,” Clarke said. “No. 1, Stasis (infant). No. 2, Trigger (young girl). No. 3, Quest (betrothal). No. 4, Surprise (courtesan). No. 5, Critical Choice (bride). No. 6, Climax (wife). No. 7, Reversal (matron). No. 8, Resolution (widow). Every love story published these days must follow this structure.”

Heller’s tapestry and Gordon-Collins’s photographs explore wedding dresses and the commodification of weddings. The tapestry shows a bride in a beautiful dress, but her face is blurry, unimportant, and the dress becomes the focal point, a uniform, a symbol.

The photos, in the photogram or X-ray style, lack faces altogether, only the wedding attires of four generations of women of the artist’s family can be seen.

“Grandmother’s wedding tunic was modest, especially in comparison to the artist’s daughter’s wedding dress, much more opulent and sensual, and designed for one-time use only,” said Clarke. “Here, we can trace how, through the generations, the weddings grow into an industry, and the wedding accessories become commodities.”

While neon-bright colours dominate Gordon-Collins’s images and Coe’s collages shimmer with the patina of gold, Broca’s contribution to the show is a sequence of stark black and white lithographs, all from her Brides series.

“My mother passed away in 1989,” Broca said, as she explained the roots of her series. “I was devastated by her death, although it was a blessing after suffering for years from cancer. Soon after her passing, I started dreaming about her as a young bride. I decided to draw my dreams.”

Her drawings reflect the dichotomy between the happily-ever-after concept and the fact that most marriages in the past were arranged, and not unions of love.

One of the drawings, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” depicts a bride sitting in a chair, regarding a frog in her lap. A few more frogs – potential princes? – wait at her feet, expecting her to choose between them.

“I knew my bride would not kiss that frog,” said Broca. “So I added several other potential grooms. Some small, others big…. Still, I had a feeling she would resist them all.”

The work “Upon Reflection” is even more powerful. It shows a bride in a gown and veil looking into a full-length mirror. The image in the mirror depicts the bride, face and posture serene, as befits the occasion, but Broca has left the image of the bride herself white and, from within it, there is the drawing of a woman, the bride, trying to escape.

“That woman, upon reflection, discovers how much she doesn’t wish to be married, to be tied down. What happens next is up to the viewer’s imagination,” said the artist.

For Broca, black and white was the only possibility for the series. “It was the most appropriate way to describe what I felt…. After the first two or three drawings, I began to realize that many brides were not happy at the altar – I showed them. Only a very few happy brides appear in my drawings. Not because happy brides are a minority, but because happy brides are difficult to portray without slipping into a less-than-powerful mode. I may be wrong, I may be able to do it today, but, at that time, it didn’t seem possible.”

Clarke knew about Broca’s series and wanted to include it in its entirety in the show, but that wasn’t possible. “We couldn’t include so many that Angela wanted because they had been sold,” said Broca. “We couldn’t borrow them. The owners live in the U.S. and Eastern Canada. As it is, the two works in the exhibition were borrowed from local owners.”

Brides is at the Italian Cultural Centre until Sept. 30.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on September 13, 2019September 10, 2019Author Olga LivshiCategories Visual ArtsTags Angela Clarke, art, Barbara Heller, Brides, Il Museo, illustration, Italian Cultural Centre, Lilian Broca, tapestry, women
Photos inspire a dream

Photos inspire a dream

“Curiosity,” photo by Liron Gertsman.

One of the most important issues we should be grappling with nowadays is the preservation of our habitat. At the forefront of the nature preservation movement are photographers and one of them is Liron Gertsman, a young, award-winning local nature photographer whose solo show, Essence of Earth, is at the Zack Gallery until Sept. 22.

The show is sponsored by Esther Chetner.

“Eldad Goldfarb, executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, approached me about this upcoming sponsorship opportunity, aware of my own concern about climate change and my passion for photography,” Chetner told the Independent. “Though I’ve traipsed parts of the globe enjoying the wonders that photo details can deliver, I’m not at all technically trained nor technologically nimble…. I recognize the remarkable quality of Liron’s images, and see value in making his work accessible to others.”

Calling Gertsman a “rising star,” Chetner said, “Encouraging this type of exquisite work is another way to help people appreciate our natural world more deeply and then, hopefully, to work toward preserving such essential global health and diversity. The more we see and appreciate about our natural environment, the more we will all be inclined to proactively protect it.

“Jewish values are quite aligned with environmental stewardship, and so having Liron’s work displayed at the JCC seems like an appropriate fit.”

Part of the proceeds of the exhibit will benefit the gallery, and another part will go to the Nature Trust of British Columbia.

“There are several charities concerned with nature preservation in B.C.,” Gertsman said, “but I like the Nature Trust because they purchase land specifically to build and maintain a treasury of wild areas.”

The 19-year-old photographer is passionate about preservation. (See jewishindependent.ca/tikkun-olam-through-photos.)

photo - Liron Gertsman has loved nature and photography all his life
Liron Gertsman has loved nature and photography all his life. (photo by Ian Harland)

“I’ve loved nature and taking photographs all my life,” he told the Independent. “Recently, I started moving toward doing it professionally, like giving photography workshops or guiding people on their bird-watching expeditions.”

His photographs are like a guided tour. “I want people to witness nature,” he said. “I want to share with them what I see, even if they can’t travel themselves.”

To cover some of his costs, he has, at times, formed partnerships with companies and organizations.

“I choose companies focused on nature conservation,” he explained. “They would subsidize some aspects of my trip, or sometimes an entire trip, in exchange for photo use and social media marketing, usually through my Instagram account, which has close to 50,000 followers.”

For instance, in May and August of this year, Gertsman partnered with Ocean Outfitters, an ecotourism company based in Tofino.

“They are Tofino’s first carbon-neutral ecotourism company, and they have committed to donating $200,000 a year for multiple years towards restoration of the Tranquil Watershed,” he said.

Gertsman’s photos at the Zack Gallery are full of life and colour. His birds seem to soar through the gallery space. His landscapes are like windows, looking out into the British Columbia wilderness. Stars twinkle in the night sky. Pink crags reflect in the still surface of the lake. Waterfall gurgles across the boulders. Owls hide in the grass, and gulls skim over the rippling wavelets. But the beauty and serenity of his images filled me with apprehension. Could we lose all of this gorgeousness? The night after I visited his show, I had a dream, and Gertsman’s imagery figured heavily in my dreamscape.

* * *

“What is it, Grandpa?” a girl asked.

“A picture archive,” the old man replied.

“But it’s not a memory crystal.”

“No, it’s from the 21st century, an antique. Two hundred years old,” he said, inserting an outmoded device into a slot of his com-link and opening the files. Hundreds of pictures appeared on his screen. Nature, when it flourished.

“Oh,” his granddaughter said with interest. “What are those?”

“Birds,” he whispered reverently. In the image, hundreds of small dark bodies hurtle across the peachy sky, their wings pumping so rapidly, the image blurred.

“Like a hologram in a museum?”

“Yes. Only they were alive. Flying.”

“But why is the wall pink? Why would they paint it pink?”

photo - “Sandpiper Sunset,” by Liron Gertsman
“Sandpiper Sunset,” photo by Liron Gertsman.

The old man glanced at the wall of the cave that housed the archives. Nobody lived on the surface of the earth anymore. Nobody could survive the toxic environment. People inhabited underground caverns such as this one and, mostly, they didn’t bother painting the walls. There were few resources anymore.

“It’s not a wall, it’s the sky,” he said. He had been very young when the last of humanity had moved underground, but he still remembered the sky. Scientists said that, in a few more generations, they could live outside again, but he wasn’t sure his granddaughter would last that long. He certainly wouldn’t.

“Our teacher said the sky should be blue,” the girl insisted.

“The sky could be any colour. This is probably sunset.”

“What is sunset?” She had never seen the sun.

He sighed, but, before he could explain, her gaze had skipped to another image.

“It looks like a fountain,” she marveled, “but what are these green blobs?”

The old man winced. “Trees. Bushes. It’s not a fountain. It’s a waterfall.”

Her finger zeroed in on another image. “I know,” she said triumphantly. “These are dogs. Strange dogs, though.”

“These are not dogs. These are bears. The mother bear is….” He contemplated the animals on the screen, trying to remember his own textbooks. He had never seen a living bear either. “I think she is as big as I am,” he said at last. “Maybe bigger. And the little bears are probably your size.”

“So huge?” She eyed him with doubt. “They lived outside, too?”

He nodded.

“I don’t think I’d like it outside,” she said. “Everything is different. I like it better here.” She climbed off her chair and started to leave. “We have everything here.” She went out into the corridor. “I think it’s all fairy tales anyway,” she called back.

The old man remained still, staring at the closed door with sadness.

* * *

Essence of Earth opened at the Zack Gallery. To see more of Gertsman’s work, visit lirongertsman.com or instagram.com/liron_gertsman_photography.

 

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on September 6, 2019September 4, 2019Author Olga LivshinCategories Visual ArtsTags environment, Esther Chetner, Liron Gertsman, photography, Zack Gallery
Exhibit of inscriptional art

Exhibit of inscriptional art

Ken Hughes infuses his paintings with messages. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Ken Hughes has always been fascinated with typography. “Since childhood, letters of the alphabet have intrigued me,” he said in an interview with the Independent.

“Public lettering is a centuries-old method of civic communication, both official and informal,” he said. “It goes back to Mesopotamia. By Greek and Roman times, public writing – inscriptions on buildings, commercial graphics, signs, epitaphs on tombs, graffiti – was common. The messages could be political or commercial, funerial or commemorative, religious or frivolous. In more contemporary times, particularly in Europe, public inscriptions have undergone a revival.”

The artist draws from this rich tradition for his paintings and his new show at the Zack Gallery, Ancient Writings in Contemporary Contexts, opens next week. A collection of inscriptional paintings, beautiful and evocative, colours and shapes of the images enhance and deepen the meanings of the lettering, and every piece tells a story.

Before retiring, Hughes was a professional graphic designer. He taught graphic design for years at Emily Carr and Kwantlen universities. He turned to art five years ago.

“Inscriptions – texts expressed formally or otherwise in different alphabets or languages – are a major source of inspiration for my paintings,” he said. “This particular exhibition’s goal is to visually express texts related to Jewish beliefs and culture. Some of the paintings have writings in the Hebrew alphabet. Others have transliterated Hebrew using the Roman alphabet.”

He explained that the messages in his paintings come from various sources: the Hebrew Bible, fiction and nonfiction by Jewish writers, as well as quotes by famous people, all related in one way or another to Jewish culture.

“I don’t speak Hebrew,” he said, “but I have friends who do. I always ask them to check the writing before I incorporate it into my paintings.”

In his work, the esthetics of the letters are intertwined with the message of the citation used. He has been collecting quotes, personal mottos, sayings and other forms of public texts for a long time. “I sing in a choir, and much of choral music is liturgical,” he said. “It has incredible messages, many of them in Latin. I also read a lot and get my messages from books, from newspapers, from common idioms.”

In 2002, Hughes took a yearlong sabbatical from teaching to prepare for what he does now.

“I traveled through Europe – Poland, France, Turkey, Belgium, Greece and Israel,” he said. “I took photos of the public inscriptions on civic buildings, in churches, at cemeteries. I wrote down quotes from illuminated manuscripts in national libraries. There are incredible inscriptions on the tombstones in Budapest, where many famous Hungarians are buried. Jewish cemeteries have beautiful inscriptions in Hebrew.”

Sometimes, a line of text or a quote stays in his memory or in his notebooks for decades before appearing in one of his paintings. Many of his pieces are sad, executed in a darkish palette, underscoring words of deep emotion: grief, fear, despair, memories of hard times and bleak thoughts. But there is hope and joy, too, and Hughes uses bright and colourful compositions to accentuate those messages.

One of his uplifting works, a multi-paneled cycle based on the story of Genesis, with Hebrew lettering dancing across the panels, is decorative as well as informative. The series will be in the exhibit at the Zack.

“Alphabets are amazing inventions, incredible almost,” Hughes said. “They allow people to communicate ideas with just a few symbols. And they are all different – the Roman alphabet, the Cyrillic letters, the Hebrew. In all cases, letters by themselves mean nothing; they’re just symbols. But a combination of letters, a phrase, could have profound meaning.”

When Hughes starts working on a piece, he approaches it as a designer, with a typographer’s attention to detail. He makes many sketches while investigating each idea. What colours should be employed and in what combinations? What is the best number of panels for this message and the most expressive configuration to highlight the meaning of the words? Even the font used can make a difference.

“Some letters look better in a rounded font; others need a blockier typeface,” he said. “The positioning of the letters and the words could be of paramount importance in my paintings. They constitute the composition. And, of course, the message itself often dictates the font type.”

There are not many artists in Canada who dedicate their art to this kind of painting.

“I wanted my paintings at the Zack,” Hughes said. “I don’t want to display at commercial galleries. I think my works are much more suited to schools, churches or community centres.”

Ancient Writings in Contemporary Contexts runs from July 25 to Aug. 25. To learn more, visit kenhughes-art.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on July 19, 2019July 18, 2019Author Olga LivshinCategories Visual ArtsTags inscriptional art, Ken Hughes, painting, writing, Zack Gallery
Colour bursts forth in Conjunction

Colour bursts forth in Conjunction

Ira Hoffecker’s current solo exhibit at the Zack Gallery, Conjunction, runs until July 21. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Conjunction, Ira Hoffecker’s current solo exhibit at the Zack Gallery, opened on June 13 and runs until July 21.

German-born Hoffecker and her family moved to Canada in 2004. “I always liked art, but when I lived in Germany, my husband and I worked in marketing for the movie industry,” she explained in an interview with the Independent.

Once, when her children were still young, they came here for a family vacation and traveled Vancouver Island. “We loved it,” she said. So much that, when they moved here permanently, they settled in Victoria. As if that wasn’t change enough, Hoffecker also decided to switch careers and follow her lifelong love of art. She enrolled in the Vancouver Island School of Art and has been studying and creating ever since.

Hoffecker’s previous show at the Zack Gallery, in 2016, was dedicated to maps. Since then, her art has undergone a couple of transformations. Conjunction is much brighter and more expressive set of works, although the abstract component remains.

On the journey to her new colourful mode, Hoffecker went through a black-and-white stage, which was the focus of her master’s in fine arts’ thesis, which she completed last year. The works she created for her master’s degree include a number of huge paintings – abstracts made with tar on canvas – plus three documentary videos. The theme – “History as Personal Memory” – was a painful one for the artist. She recalled, “One of my professors said that my works are the interconnected layers of urban setting and history. ‘Where is your personal layer?’ he asked me.”

Taking this advice, she has been trying to delve into her personal recollections, to uncover her place in history, her “personal layer” among the historical layers dominating her art. “In ‘History as Personal Memory,’ I tore pages from a history book about the Third Reich, an era in history that many Germans would prefer to forget. Yet I think it is important to face and discuss this past. Such dialogue might prevent the horrors from happening again,” she said.

In Hoffecker’s art, the artist’s memories are intertwined with the history of her nation. “Correlations between my childhood abuse, which I tried to forget, and the history of Germany, which the Germans tried to eradicate from their memories, exist in my paintings and films,” she said.

In her art and her videos, she opens up about the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her grandfather, who was also a Nazi. She is convinced that such openness has helped her heal, whereas suppressing the memories led only to the festering of her inner wounds.

The same is true for historical memories, Hoffecker insisted. “Germany needs to remember, to confront and challenge complacency to prevent a repetition of historical atrocities,” she said.

Her master’s thesis was a deep and painful discovery, a journey in black-and-white to underscore the grimness and tragedy of the topic. Once it was completed, she was ready for a change of direction.

“I spent the summer last year in Berlin,” she said. “When I came back home to Victoria, I wanted to paint some colours again.”

Hoffecker’s current exhibit bursts with vibrant colours and optimism. The series Berlin Spaces, like most of her paintings, has several layers. “There are outlines of many famous Berlin buildings there,” she said, tracing the architectural lines embedded in the abstract patterns with her finger. “The Jewish Museum, the Philharmonie, the library, the Reichstag. It is like a reconstruction, when I think about the past. I overlay history and architecture.”

One of the paintings, a bright yellow-and-pink abstract, has writing among its patterns. “It means ‘forgetting’ in German,” Hoffecker explained. “A few years ago, I was invited to have a solo show in Hof, a city in Germany. I worked there in the archives, found many old maps and records. One of their buildings is a factory now. After the war, it was a refugee camp, and there is a plaque to commemorate the fact. But, during the war, it was a labour camp, a place from where Jewish prisoners were transported to concentration camps and death, but nothing is there to remind [people] of that past. The painting reflects the current happy state of the building, but it also reflects the tragic past, the past we shouldn’t forget.”

While not many art lovers will see the horrors of the labour camp in the airy and cheerful palette of the painting, Hoffecker doesn’t mind. Like other abstract artists, she infuses her images with hidden messages, but doesn’t insist on her personal intentions.

“I own the making,” she said. “I bring in my memories and my heart, but I have to leave the interpretation to the viewers. One man in Victoria loves my art. He bought two of my paintings. He said he sees animal in them. I don’t paint animals, but I’m glad people’s own experience resonates with my paintings.”

Hoffecker is very serious about her art, but bemoans the need for promotion. “I did marketing for movies professionally, but I never really cared [about the reaction]. If someone didn’t like the movie we were pushing, it was his business,” she said. “But to promote my own paintings is scary. When someone doesn’t like what I do, I care. It hurts. I don’t want to do it. An artist wants to be in her studio and paint. It is all I want: to paint and to exhibit. I want people to see my work. Besides, a show is the only time when I see many of my paintings together. I never can do that in my studio. I only see one or two at a time.”

To learn more about Hoffecker’s work, visit irahoffecker.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on July 5, 2019July 10, 2019Author Olga LivshinCategories Visual ArtsTags abuse, art, Germany, history, Holocaust, Ira Hoffecker, maps, memory, painting, Zack Gallery
Dali artwork on display

Dali artwork on display

Left to right: Oree Gianacopoulos, Chali-Rosso Gallery director; James Sanders from Dali Universe (Switzerland); and Susanna Strem, president of Chali-Rosso Gallery. (photo by Shula Klinger)

May 17 and 18 saw the unveiling of two sculptures by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali, which will be on display until September. The sculptures were brought to Vancouver by the Chali-Rosso Gallery on Howe Street, the site of the annual Definitely Dali exhibition. More than 100 Dali originals are on display at the gallery, along with 20 smaller versions of Dali’s bronzes.

On May 17, “Dalinian Dancer” was revealed at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni. “Space Venus” was unveiled on the next day at Lot 19, on West Hastings at Hornby. The unveilings were accompanied by flamenco music, which Dali loved.

Oree Gianacopoulous, Chali-Rosso’s director, spoke before the unveiling of “Space Venus.” Describing it as one of Dali’s “iconic” pieces, she expressed her gratitude to Beniamino Levi, director of Dali Universe, the foundation that lends out the artwork. Levi worked with Dali himself to develop the collection of 29 sculptures.

This is the third year that Dali sculptures have traveled to Vancouver, under the leadership of Chali-Rosso president Susanna Strem, a member of the Jewish community. Working in close collaboration with Dali Universe in Europe, which loaned the sculptures to Chali-Rosso, Strem’s initiative has helped establish a new cultural tradition for the downtown core.

This year, the gallery also worked with Virtro Games to develop a smartphone application to enhance viewers’ experience of the sculpture. Definitely Dali is an augmented reality app – when a phone camera is focused on the image of Dali’s face, the dancer begins to move her arms and spin.

Alex Lazimir, who developed the app, talked about the privilege of spending many hours looking at Dali’s dancer. “I really like this piece because it was like going into Salvador Dali’s mind. The first thing I thought was that she has to be spinning.”

photo - Salvador Dali’s “Dalinian Dancer” can be found at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni
Salvador Dali’s “Dalinian Dancer” can be found at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni. (photo by Shula Klinger)

After the unveilings, Chali-Rosso hosted a champagne reception and a talk by James Sanders of Dali Universe (Switzerland). With reference to the sculptures at the gallery, Sanders spoke about Dali’s life and the tremendous influence of his surreal imagination on the world of art. Sanders is responsible for sourcing locations, sponsors and partners for exhibitions all over the world.

Originally from Europe, Strem came to Canada 25 years ago, via a spell in Israel. Formerly an information technology professional, Strem spoke about the challenge of bringing world-class art to public spaces in Vancouver.

“These sculptures are traveling all over the world. They’re exhibited in many major cities. Vancouver has to compete with cities like New York, London and Paris. These are major art hubs, so we are very happy that we managed to get two sculptures.”

Last year, Definitely Dali featured “Woman in Flame” and “Surrealist Piano.” More than three million visitors saw the sculptures.

Bringing monumental works of art here is a labour of love, however. “It takes almost a year to organize something like this,” said Strem. “Last year, when we had two other sculptures here, we were already talking about this year’s exhibition. It all depends on what is available and circumstances in other cities.”

The logistics of moving bronzes like “Space Venus” – which is 3.5 metres high – can be tough. “These sculptures were transported by ocean freight from Italy, then traveled through the Atlantic to the Panama Canal, up the Pacific Ocean past Mexico and California to Vancouver,” she said. “It’s a long journey. We experienced a delay. There was a traffic jam in the Panama Canal.”

photo - “Space Venus” by Salvador Dali has been placed in Lot 19, on West Hastings at Hornby
“Space Venus” by Salvador Dali has been placed in Lot 19, on West Hastings at Hornby. (photo by Shula Klinger)

These exhibits are both the impetus for, and a sign of, urban growth – “for a real city,” said Strem, “public art is a natural part of its evolution.” She spoke of the collaboration with the Downtown Business Improvement Association. “They were full-force behind it from day one, which helped motivate us. They were really enthusiastic,” she said.

Part of Chali-Rosso’s community involvement includes supporting Recovery Through Art, a charitable organization in Vancouver that gives individuals struggling with mental illness and addiction a chance to heal through the creation and appreciation of art.

Strem is already seeing the impact of the Dali pieces on public display. “If somebody is looking at their phone and they walk by 10 times but, this time, they look up and their face changes, even for a fleeting moment, that’s important. Or they might stop for 30 minutes. There are many ways to enjoy art,” she said.

Strem explained that, to truly become part of life, art should not just be locked away in special locations.

“It’s not about having a destination for art, where you allocate time and energy to it,” she said. “When we don’t engage with art like this, in public, people are missing out.”

Shula Klinger is an author and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at shulaklinger.com.

 

Format ImagePosted on June 14, 2019June 12, 2019Author Shula KlingerCategories Visual ArtsTags Alex Lazimir, art, Chali-Rosso, James Sanders, Oree Gianacopoulous, Salvador Dali, sculpture, Susanna Strem
Rootman’s night scenes

Rootman’s night scenes

Jack Rootman, in front of his painting “Homage to Degas.” (photo by Olga Livshin)

Jack Rootman’s new solo show, Scene at Night, opens tomorrow, June 1, at the Visual Space Gallery on Dunbar Street. As the name implies, the exhibition is dedicated to Rootman’s paintings of urban night scenes.

“There are several reasons I’m interested in painting the night,” he said in an interview with the Independent. “First, I wanted to show human activity as it is spotlighted at night. People move from one light source to another, from the indoor balcony to the moving lights of cars. You don’t see it so focused during the day. When you look in the daytime, there is a panorama in front of you, your attention wanders; there is too much to see. But, at night, you see activity encapsulated. Someone drinks coffee. Someone crosses a street. Someone is sad or crying or laughing. Your attention is drawn to a spot of light.”

The second reason for his fascination with the nocturnal setting has to do with the constantly changing colours and contrasts. “There are many light sources wherever you are at night – streetlights, lights from the windows, moonlight – and each combination gives off different colour nuances and shadows, depending on where you stand, on the angle of your view,” he explained.

Rootman thinks an element of colour always exists, even at night, when there is a “dynamic blackness. If you look at my paintings,” he said, “there is red black and purple black, blue black and green black.”

Night’s more limited spectrum of colours intrigues and challenges the artist. “Of course, it is more difficult to paint night, to see colours in the darkness,” he said. “Sometimes, I have to use Photoshop to analyze what colours appear in a photograph, before I transfer the image to an oil painting.”

Rootman started painting night scenes years ago, although the bulk of the 22 paintings in the current exhibit have been created in the past five years. During his travels, he took many photographs at night in Paris, Venice, New York and Montreal. He also made sketches and recorded the colours as he saw them. But his paintings never follow the photos to the letter. One painting, a ribbon of light, might be an abstract representation of the night traffic along a boulevard, based on a photo taken from the balcony of his hotel room. Another might be a composition of images from different years and cities.

“My painting ‘Homage to Degas’ is one such a composition,” he said. “I saw this marijuana shop in Vancouver and it reminded me of a Degas painting. I included two of his paintings in this piece.”

In addition to the technical challenges of depicting a city scene at night, Rootman is interested in the loneliness that is most profound at night. “During the day,” he said, “we are at work, but the night brings isolation. It also brings possibilities – many people are lonely, and they go out during the night to meet others.”

photo - “Ice Cream,” by Jack Rootman, is among the works featured in his solo show, Scene at Night, which opens June 1 at the Visual Space Gallery
“Ice Cream,” by Jack Rootman, is among the works featured in his solo show, Scene at Night, which opens June 1 at the Visual Space Gallery.

Some of the paintings show this disconnection. Everyone is absorbed in what they are doing, alone in their own spots of light, talking on their cellphone or lost in thought, and darkness separates them from one another.

“The night is also traditionally associated with a sense of danger,” the artist mused. “Several paintings in this series are lanes, particularly lanes in downtown Vancouver. Anything could hide in such a lane, with insufficient light: from rats to human predators.”

While his lanes are bleak, despite the illumination of neon signs and streetlights, there is always hope in Rootman’s paintings. Perhaps his medical background brings that sense to the fore of everything he does, both in his professional field of eye surgery and in his art.

“My most comfortable mental state is when I’m doing something creative and visual,” he said. “It works for my art. It also worked for my job as a surgeon, before I retired. Surgery is very creative. Like art, surgery is a discovery. Nothing is ever as you expected.”

And, like in his medical practice, where every patient had a story, all of his paintings are stories, too, stories of danger and loneliness, separation and connection, all linked together by darkness and light.

“My work has a certain affiliation with music and poetry,” said Rootman. “That’s why I decided to have a music night and a poetry night as parts of this show.”

The music night with Amicus Ensemble will be held at the gallery on June 5, 6-8 p.m., and the poetry night the next evening, June 6, 6-8 p.m. Scene at Night is at the Visual Space Gallery until June 9.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on May 31, 2019May 30, 2019Author Olga LivshinCategories Visual ArtsTags Jack Rootman, music, painting, poetry

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