Lindsey Tyne Johnson has a new show at the Zack Gallery: The Irish Mazzaroth & Hebrew Spelled Backwards. It comprises two separate parts.
Hebrew Spelled Backwards debuted at the Kamloops Art Gallery in 2023. It is a series of illustrations in which the artist explores her Jewish heritage.
“When the show finished in Kamloops, the Zack Gallery director contacted me,” Johnson told the Independent. “But the show had only seven pieces, and the Zack Gallery is large. It needed more art.”
At about the same time, Johnson decided to delve deeper into her ethnic roots. “My mother’s family were Irish Jews,” she said. “Not a usual combination. I went to Ireland in February 2024 to find out more.”
She was fascinated by what she discovered. “Jews appeared in Ireland in the 1500s,” she shared. “Later, antisemitism forced many of them to leave, but they came back again. Then, there was a wave of Jews who came to Ireland and Northern Ireland from Russia in the beginning of the 20th century – they were escaping pogroms. Someone tricked them, sold them tickets to New York, but delivered them to Ireland instead and kicked them off the ship there. Some persisted in traveling to America, but others settled in Ireland. And then, there were the Jewish children escaping the Holocaust in Europe, Ireland took them in.”
When Johnson visited the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin, she found a number of her ancestors. “Their names were all written up in the Book of Irish Jewry there,” she explained. “The museum staff asked me if I wanted my name to be added to the new edition of the book. Of course, I said yes.”
The second part of the show, Irish Mazzaroth, started taking shape in her mind while she was in Ireland. The 12 black and white illustrations on the gallery walls reflect Johnson’s take on the zodiac’s traditional imagery. Mazzaroth means constellations in Hebrew.
Both Jewish and Irish lore have a long record of zodiac interpretations, from Greco-Roman mythology to the Zodiac Wheel, the centrepiece of the sixth-century mosaic at Beit Alpha in Israel.
Johnson, a young Canadian artist, has succeeded in meshing seamlessly Celtic symbolism and Jewish mysticism into a series of computer illustrations that are uniquely hers.
“I started the first one in January. I finished the last one just before the show,” she said. “Each one is a well-known astrological sign, and each involves some aspects of both Jewish and Irish culture.”
Every illustration is a whimsical little story, a playful tale that connects all earth cultures to one another. The images are clean and austere, uncluttered by unnecessary details. The twin girls in Gemini smile at the viewer. In front of them are Shabbat candles and a challah. Behind them, a leafy tree rises in the Irish countryside. Their quiet joy is unmistakable.
On the other hand, the lone girl in Scorpio is solemnly considering the riches of ancient books in the famous Old Library in Trinity College in Dublin. She seems breathless with excitement at the abundance of choices in front of her, her braid curling up defiantly like a scorpion’s tail. The Jewish thirst for knowledge is given form in the context of the historical Irish library.
In another famous location in Dublin, the Temple Bar pub, Johnson features, in Virgo, an Irish Jewish woman playing a fiddle, merging lively Jewish klezmer and Celtic tunes.
In Leo, the backdrop is grimmer. It depicts the Crumlin Road Gaol, hinting at the political strife in Ireland, while the man in front reminds us of the story of Daniel and the lions. “One of my distant relatives worked as a prison guard there,” Johnson said.
The frames of every illustration are identical: a rounded rectangle of Celtic knots, tied together at the top by a Magen David, which also emphasizes the affinity of two cultures.
The Irish Mazzaroth & Hebrew Spelled Backwards is on display at the Zack Gallery until May 9. To read more about Johnson and Hebrew Spelled Backwards, go to jewishindependent.ca/artfully-exploring-heritage.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].