Jewish Arts by Richard McBee
Sacred
Images of Dov Lederberg and Yael Avi-Yonah
Messianic Jerusalem 55" x 202"
We have all experienced the times
when you want
something so bad
that you cannot bear to wait
for reality to catch up
with desire.
This is what the Rambam alluded to
as he formulated
“I believe with a perfect faith
in the coming of the Messiah,
and even
though he may delay,
nevertheless I anticipate
every day that he will
come.”
Therefore it is understandable
when an artist attempts
to
envision that which should, indeed,
must become the future.
This
impulse to make a sacred art
and thereby to shape
the future into today
can be called “Visionary Art.”
By their own definition,
this is the art of
Dov Lederberg and Yael
Avi-Yonah.
Cherub Dialogues #3 Tenderness 40" x
30"
Dov and Yael create their artwork
completely independently
of
each other, each producing
a deeply individual vision of a spiritual
reality.
Nonetheless, this happily married couple
continually inspires
each other from their upstairs
and downstairs studios in their home in
Jerusalem.
They share a common love of
kabbalah and determination
to
share a unique vision of the world
with as many people
who will take
the time to look,
think and feel beyond surface appearances.
The deep
spirituality they seek
causes them to see the world
through a lens of
emerging potential
that navigates
the razor thin edge between submerged
reality
and a future struggling to become manifest.
Priestly Blessing 31" x 39"
Yael Avi-Yonah, daughter of the
esteemed Israeli
archaeologist and art historian,
Michael Avi-Yonah, has created highly
successful Jewish art
for over twenty-five years
including paintings,
prints and serigraphs
of Jerusalem landscapes and biblical
scenes.
Since
1988 she has effectively invented and developed
an unusual kind of
visual expression called Anaglyphic Art
that embodies her complex and
multiple kabbalistic visions.
Anaglyphic Art (“ana” = diminishing,
“glyphic” = form)
is simultaneously entirely new and amazingly ancient.
Her researches have found that many artists of the
past,
including Rembrandt, have unconsciously
used these esoteric
techniques.
Utilizing the right brain (abba - chachmah - masculine)
left brain (imma - bina -feminine) dichotomy
she combines in each
painting elements that
will stimulate these distinct cognitive
areas.
The right brain tends to see the general picture
while the left brain concentrates on details
and
the balance of light and darkness.
Yael strives to put both kinds
of artistic vision
in each of these Anaglyphic works
and asks the
viewers
to use special red and blue lenses
to optically combine and
then
selectively divide the two visions.
The effect of seeing one
area of a painting leap to life
while suppressing another is startling
and in Yael’s complex layering of images
a hidden narrative is
frequently revealed.
Alternatively viewing the painting
through the red lens
and then the blue lens
shifts the content of
the image
while looking at the painting
through both eyes and lenses
creates a “hologram” effect.
World of Angels
Original
Work
Seen
through Red Lens
Seen through
Blue Lens
Yael is striving for the experience of revelation.
Seeing figures
and heads appear and disappear
while auras of light seem to materialize
out of nowhere
as one optically shifts from red to blue and back again
makes the aesthetic experience
challenging and interactive.
I am
not convinced, however,
that it actually becomes revelatory.
For
me that supernal vision
she seeks is more closely approached
in the
moving paintings she has done
depicting the future Jerusalem.
The series of New City or Messianic Jerusalem
presents
two innovative visions of the Holy City.
One enormous painting
“Messianic Jerusalem” (55" x 202")
shown above is suffused with light
and spiritual auras
that create a virtual reality in which materiality
seems to disappear before our very eyes
as if two thousand years of
yearning
finally materialized
every Jew’s deepest desire for holiness
and peace.
This may be one of her most successful paintings
by
creating a very real structure (which is what
the Messianic Jerusalem
will do, i.e. restructure reality)
using the pure light of spirituality
to reconfigure the material world.
Future City #2 30" x 40"
Another set of paintings conceives of
the New
Jerusalem
as an entity structured entirely of crystals
suffused in
dramatic lights and darks,
eerily glowing in a kind of heavenly Las Vegas
as
vivid reds, purples and blues
compete for attention with flashes
of white light.
The crystal city of Jerusalem
becomes more
fantastic with each painting.
Future City #9 30" x 40"
The climax of these visions is “Future City #9”
as the
resurrection of the dead bursts
upon the scene in an apparition of
skulls
floating against a crimson mist
evoking a vision of Ezekiel of
the world to come.
This vision is less of a liberation
from death
than a warning
that the future may not be entirely comforting.
Yael
feels the current desperate situation in Israel,
especially in
Jerusalem
concerning the never-ending violence
and conflict is
precisely the
impetus
for creating these visions of the future today.
Dov Lederberg approaches his future vision
from the
veiled perspective of contemporary art.
His subjects are
alternatively hidden
in vivid psychedelic visions
or overt symbolism
embedded in Op Art.
A recent series of paintings
called “Dialogues”
starts
with the visual paradigm of the cherubs
that rested atop the Ark
of the Covenant.
The Midrash elaborates t
hat they faced one another
but
with a change of the mental state
of the Jewish people
they would
change their position,
even turning away from one another
in anger and
discord.
Building on this premise Lederberg
manipulates two kidney
shaped
abstractions that face one another
and morph from painting to
painting i
n changes of color, intensity and shape.
These wing-like
forms represent
such diverse emotions as
Sympathy , Transcendence , Envy , Affection
, Gluttony.
It is here that the distinction
between Yael and Dov becomes
clear
as Dov’s conceptual bias is constantly manifest
while she remains linked to a more
traditional view,
almost always referring to a concrete reality.
Dov comes to his artwork after
an extensive background in experimental
film,
including a stint with Israeli television
making documentaries
and educational films.
In the 1960’s he learned in various
yeshivas
and since the 1980’s
he has been deeply involved
in kabbalah and
meditation
which has dominated
his painting
for the last decade or so.
A passionate investigation
into
the essence of things
has fueled Dov’s work.
My Dove in the
Crevice of the Rock
The Women's Gallery
His series on the intricate texture
of the
Western Wall looks deep
into the tiny crevices and fractures
in the
surface of the ancient stone
finding echoes of symbols and meanings.
The Twelve Tribes 55" x 61"
Similarly he has sought
a way
to fuse the names of the twelve tribes
that appear on the Khoshen
Hamishpat
(the Breastplate of the High Priest)
with images that evoke
each
tribe.
The resulting set of twelve paintings
becomes a giant
meditation
on the power of the letters and the names
that causes the viewer
to
assemble
and disassemble
the myriad relationships possible
between the tribes
and
their attributes.
The Haichal (Temple Sanctuary) - Non Local Reality 30" x
40"
The artist explains that since
the destruction of the Second Temple
the
primary aesthetic experience of
the Jewish people has been oral,
citing
the verbal nature of learning the Talmud
and transmitting that
knowledge
from generation to generation.
Almost two thousand
years ago
this represented a loss of the visual experience
that is
reasserting itself now
as we rapidly approach the Age of the Messiah,
becoming more and more pronounced as
many artists delve into kabbalah,
uncovering and hoping
to reveal esoteric and mystical realities.
He sees the increased awareness of kabbalah
and especially the study of
the Zohar
as leading to an expanded consciousness
allowing both artists
and viewers
to perceive that which was hidden before.
It is the
future of heightened consciousness
that Dov Lederberg has claimed as
his subject.
Kapporot Erev Yom Kippur 30" x 40"
His more recent work has
concentrated on Kabbalah Mandalas
that are frequently circular in composition (
the classic mandala
form)
and are particularly well suited
to being used as objects of
meditation.
“ Inner Space01 ,”
"Inner Space02 ,”
“Wheels
of Light ,”
“Kabbalah Kisses ”
“Kaporot Erev Yom Kippur” (shown above)
all present a form of optical
stimulation,
also utilizing Yael’s Anaglyphic methodology,
that harken
back to 60’s Op Art
harnessed in the quest for spiritual
elevation.
Abraham's Vision - the Holocaust 40" x 50"
“Holocaust Causality – Abraham’s Vision”
is
a harrowing meditation
on Abraham’s Covenant Between the Parts
presenting an aerial view of the white hot fire
that consumed
the split
carcasses of the sacrificial animals.
This image in its turn
begins to appear
as the flaming torso of a man
driving home the
sacrificial nature of
the millions of martyrs consumed
in the
Holocaust.
For the normally pacific and calm
Lederberg this image
is almost unbearably violent and moving.
Other recent “ Pieces Now – Israeli Bus Bombing ”
and “Jewish Stars out of Auschwitz ”
are
similarly concerned with the violence
of our
times that cries out for explanation.
The desire
for explanation competes
with the desire for solution
of the complex
problems of the Jewish people.
We yearn for a unity of our
people,
we yearn for peace, we yearn for justice.
Simply put, we yearn
for
Moshiach daily.
Dov Lederberg and Yael Avi-Yonah
present their
mystical
visions
of a new world yearning to be born.
Richard McBee is a painter of Torah subject matter
and writer on Jewish Art.
Please feel free to contact him
with
comments at
www.richardmcbee.com .
Many of the
paintings may be available
as prints and giclees, please inquire:
http://dov-lederberg.artistwebsites.com/
You or anyone you know who may be visiting Northern
Israel
are invited to our studio/gallery at
107 Alorzorov Street
Tzfat (Safed) Israel 1322480
Telephone in Israel:
mobile: 052-662-7620
(972-52-662-7620)
USA telephone: 1-720-477-6433
email: dovlederberg@gmail.com