Davka

A Hug From The Art World is pleased to present Lisa Edelstein's Davka. My earliest encounter with both Edelstein and her work was by invitation, the setting and locale, an exhibition of her paintings. I’d been asked to join a panel, the discussion, Judaism in Visual Culture. The panel discussion was billed to start at 7 PM on January 17th, 2023, yet with no defined end time, a perilous idea with a room full of yiddishers, needless to say Lisa and I have been schmoozing ever since. A friendship has blossomed, an adulation for her paintings has developed, and I have attended each of her solo exhibitions since. There have been three, all in Edelstein’s adopted home town of Los Angeles. Success has been quick to follow, LACMA have acquired a work and Edelstein’s first museum exhibition, A Palace In Time, opens this May alongside her husband, artist, Robert Russel at the Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, CA. Fast forward three years and it’s with great pride that I get to play host to Edelstein’s first New York gallery solo exhibition. For the past several years, Edelstein has been mining for images inspired by her own Jewish family history transforming disregarded or even discarded snapshots into colorful paintings of a fading past. Her watercolor medium perfectly suits the soft lines and haze of memory that characterizes the old photographs. The paintings are deeply rooted in the Jewish diasporic experience of growing up within a multigenerational family whose elders fled violence and discrimination to find success in the new world. The exhibition's title, Davka, is a versatile Hebrew/Yiddish/Aramaic word with no direct English equivalent. It means acting out of spite/contrary to expectation and is used to emphasize a point, contradict a previous statement, or describe stubborn/ironic actions. The more you tell us not to be, we are. There are often ambivalent emotions occurring simultaneously in Edelstein’s work and her interest in storytelling arises across various avenues of artistic practice, including not just painting but also writing and acting. It’s no surprise to me the paintings resemble film stills, they’re Kubrickian, full of atmospheric tension. They’re also slapstick, they manifest endurance in the face of indifference. Edelstein’s subjects celebrate their diasporic trauma within the conundrum of American suburbia. For Davka, Edelstein will exhibit fifteen new paintings shown over two floors at our 515 West 19th St townhouse location in Chelsea, New York; it's the perfect backdrop for paintings rooted in domesticity. Mach zich heimish! Edelstein studied experimental theatre at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts before leaving to work as an actress, writer, filmmaker, and eventually expanding her practice to painting. Her work has been exhibited at Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles; Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles; SFA, New York, Gavlak Gallery, New York; and VSG, Chicago. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA. Edelstein lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and is represented by Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles.

Visit

515 W 19th St

Chelsea, NY