COLlive.com presents Art & Soul featuring renowned and up and coming artists who specialize in Jewish and Chassidic scenes and themes, and showcase their works. The feature is presented in cooperation with the Leviim Jewish Art Gallery in Crown Heights:
Cynthia Kaufman-Rose has a BFA Painting, an MFA in Sculpture from Kent State University, with postgraduate studies at Parson’s School of Design. She was awarded several Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Grants, was an Ohio Arts Council Artist in Residence for Arts in Education, and taught art at Kent State University and Cuyahoga Community College.
She has exhibited art at Pratt University Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, SPACES, Cleveland, OH, Case Western University Gallery, Ohio State University, and other galleries in New York, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Her artworks are in private collections throughout the US and internationally.
How did you get into art?
I am a daughter of Hidden Child Survivors of the Holocaust. A history of loss, transcendence, hope and strength defines my aesthetic. From ashes and darkness emerge beauty and light. Better said in this verse from Koheleth – Ecclesiastes: “He hath made everything beautiful in its time: also he hath set eternity in their heart…”
How would you describe your art?
My artwork chases after what, in essence, is meant to escape. Veils of muted color seek to capture aerial mist and elusive skies. Translucent metallics obscure and reveal fading, poetic words and Hebrew verse. Traces of crushed metal, stone and glass attempt to evoke reflections on water and glints of light.
What work are you most proud of?
I am most enthusiastic about the recent Song of Songs – Shir HaShirim series, which presents Judaism in a contemporary art context by juxtaposing modern abstraction with ancient yet timeless Tanach verse. And writing and illustrating two children’s books advocating childhood mental health: Yesterday’s Blue: A Story About Childhood Depression, and Daylight: A True Story of Childhood Schizophrenia.
What is the most challenging part of your work?
In all of us, there seems a restless, persistent longing to hold onto or complete what is unanswered and undone. Creating art is trying to find something that I never had, but still feels lost. It is looking for something I can’t see anywhere. It’s wanting to recover what doesn’t exist, though I have a sense it’s missing.
What is your favorite part of being an artist?
Creating an artwork comes close to igniting a sparkler, or setting off fireworks, or keeping a nightlight on to cast the darkness away. A work of art is an effort to still what is unsettled, and put right what seems wrong, or broken, or disquiet.
An artist’s calling follows an inner voice saying though not everything can be answered, there’s a reason for being, and to tell someone else they’re not alone. Or, better expressed in ancient Jewish teaching (Rabbi Tarfon, Ethics of Our Fathers): “You are not obligated to complete the work (of perfecting the world), but neither are you free to desist from it.”
What is your dream project?
To bring these artworks into the most unlikely places, where no one is interested in reading Torah, in hope to light a spark of the Torah in someone else’s heart.
Cynthia Kaufman-Rose will be presenting her art on Sunday, September 8th, 12- 4 pm, at the Leviim Jewish Art Gallery at 271 Kingston Ave, Brooklyn, NY. For more information, see leviimart.com
