Title: And Here I Am
I made this painting with acrylic paint, a page taken from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and screenshots of a text message to my best friend in Israel. I painted this the weekend that Israel declared war. I can’t describe how it feels to hear the news of your loved ones in danger in a language you can’t understand, waiting for American media to give you the information, delayed. As I understood pieces of information my Mom repeated, I knew that the death toll was larger than reported in English. I combined symbols that represent peace, fear, innocence, and confusion. The title “And Here I Am” comes from the words of a 12th-century Rabbi dreaming of Israel from Spain: “My Heart is in the east, and I am at the edge of the West.”
