4/ ANDI ARNOVITZ
Spotlight series
Andi LaVine Arnovitz was born in 1959 in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated with a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. For many years, Andi worked in advertising as an art director, creating print campaigns and television commercials. She attributes the conceptual ideas behind many of her pieces to this work experience. Andi considers herself a printmaker, a paper-manipulator, a bookmaker and an assemblage artist.
Her primary love is working with paper, printing on it, etching with it, drawing, sewing, tearing and repairing. Her pieces often reflect her love of pattern, surface, and thread she has had since she was child wandering through her father’s fabric store in Kansas City.
In 1999 Andi and her family moved to Jerusalem, Israel. A two year sabbatical has become a permanent stay and much of her work is informed by the multitudinous differences of living in the Middle East. Of great concern to her are primary issues surrounding the differences between Jews and Arabs, between religious and non-religious, between Jewish law and contemporary society, between men and women, between young and old.
Over and over these politics and tensions are explored, examined and dissected in her works. Andi has had numerous solo shows in Jerusalem, and recently one at Brandeis University, and at Yeshiva University Museum in NYC. Her work has been included in many group shows all over the world: in France, Spain, England, Poland, Canada, Israel, the United States, Lithuania, and Finland.
Find her at andiarnovitz.com
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I think that by virtue of the fact that I am a woman, a wife, and a mother, my work is feminine, therefore feminist. How could it be otherwise? Because I am observantly Jewish, I find myself living with a consistent tension between what was, what is, and what could be. My art reflects this ongoing dialogue with what it means to be a Jewish woman, what it means to be a mother of daughters, what it means to be a middle-aged woman. I am continually exploring the politics, myths, and challenges of the woman within Judaism, as well as the cultural and political expectations of what a woman is in the 21st century. I use many art forms that have been traditionally relegated to the realm of women: thread, needle, decoration. I use them to create awareness, protest, dialogue, and disapproval.
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Ep.4/
Andi Arnovitz
LIVING HERE, 2002
During times of conflict,violence and war how simply existing can be be both painful and tedious.
ARTIST'S OWN BOOTS, LEATHER AND JERUSALEM STONES
87 X 20 X 20 CMWorks
EXILE, 2015
There are over 58 million refugees in the world today. What happens when a person leaves their ancestral home forever? What does one take with them? This piece reflects the trauma of exile and the reality of homelessness. Some of these have broken in transit, but have been preserved as people hold on to even that which is broken.
PORCELAIN, LINEN CORD, AND SILK
SIZE VARIABLE: EACH HOUSE IS APPROXIMATELY 10 X 12 CM
HEAVY, 2020
A black linen shroud has been embellished with tens of thousands of faces. Each face represents ten civilians killed in the Syrian Civil War. For each year of the war, which began in 2011, ( and continues until today) the faces become darker and darker. Over 500,000 men, women and children non-combatants have been killed. The piece, sadly, is on-going, with additional faces being added as the casualties continue to mount. This piece was selected for the 17th Tapestry Triennial in Lodz Poland, 2023 and also was selected for Fiber Art Now’s 2023 annual juried exhibition.
LINEN, PRINTED AND LACQUERED PAPER AND THREAD
230CM X 260 CM
BETROTHED TO THE LAND, 2012
A wedding dress into which hundreds of Jerusalem stones have been sewn. The dress expresses the relationship that both Israeli and Palestinian women have to the land, how this stubborn “marriage” has created a situation in which this attachment has become so heavy and burdensome we are unable to move forward.
This piece was a part of the “Visions of Place: Complex Geographies in Contemporary Israeli Art” exhibition appearing in multiple museums in the USA in 2019.
SILK ORGANZA, THREAD & STONES
120 X 180 X 120 CM
IF ONLY THEY HAD ASKED US,
2010
This piece, like a mantle of leadership or a robe of judgement is comprised of over 4300 scrolls from the pages of Jewish law (the Talmud.) The piece suggests that had women been involved in helping to write these books, the laws would be far more colorful and vibrant.
ARCHIVAL PIGMENT INK PRINTS, COLORED THREADS, JAPANESE PAPER AND INK
102.5 X 52.5 CM