Roots

              ”By healing the past one redeems the present”

I draw lines and circles
With latent meanings
In the plain design;
Who deciphers the veiled message
In a naïve babble
As an appeasement
Of generations’s humiliation
And the wish for eternal bliss?
(1985)

This poem, which I wrote in 1985, received a fuller meaning through the series of paintings, named “Roots“.

Being second generation to holocaust survivors, for many years I avoided for long the confrontation with my family’s past, so full with suffering and terrible hardships. I felt an outsider. Nevertheless, I knew that in my individual psyche I carried the traces of generations past.

In 2005 with the encouragement of my brother I began to paint images of our childhood and family roots. This creative process, surprisingly, opened for me long sought to lost memories, acceptance of continuity, compassion, and belonging.

My previous creative period dealt with the symbolism of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
But for realization of the heavenly ideals one needs to clarify and deal with the the past.
The aim of these paintings is healing ancestral wounds. My hope is, that this healing process is passing on to the beholder as well.