Art Gallery

Tikkun seeks to bring you provocative, innovative, moving, and beautiful photo essays and art exhibits. Please read more about our vision for the gallery and comment on the art! Click on each image or title below to go the page for that exhibit.

The gallery began on our blog Tikkun Daily in July 2009 and remains there, so any link you click on this page will take you to that site. The gallery has already hosted dozens of exhibits from a remarkable range of artists, from prehistoric to postmodern, photography to drawing, graffiti to fine painting.
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Current Feature:

Alison OK Frost creates delicate and disturbing watercolors. Her figures seem to be part of a post apocalyptic world even though they are all drawn from news articles. Stripped of context and background information they float eerily on the white page.

Past Features:

Grahame Perry creates photo collages and manipulated photos, with a colorful pop art sensibility, that show his own experiences as a long-time survivor of HIV. His work is both political and personal and conveys feelings ranging from frustration and mourning to hope. His seriesMaterials of Survival explores his relationship to medication and the complex and evolving culture around HIV treatment. Ultimately his art raises questions about how new medical technology interacts with culture to color people’s lived experiences and senses of self. To learn more read Oona Taper’s interview with the artist or visit his Website.

Deirdre Weinberg makes colorful mixed media paintings that try to show a reality that might not be obvious but uses a surprising combination of elements. She wants to make an emotional connection with the viewer that will captivate the imagination. For more information read Oona Taper’s blog post or check out the artist website.[brclear]

 Mekler Illustrates the Absurdities of Modern Life: Darío Mekler’s art tends to navigate thematically through the aspects of modern life, its ironies and absurdities, and the way in which we accept them without questioning. The images he conceives are heavy on symbolism, allegory, and metaphor, but in no way are hermetic. They are open for understanding for anyone with a keen and sharp mind willing to look past the colors and superficial beauty. In his philosophy the aesthetic appeal of the piece is important and works best if the underlying message is also effective and reachable. To learn more read Oona Taper’s blog post or the artist’s website.

The Journey of the Ethiopian Community Is Not Over Yet:It is highly symbolic that Memorial Day for the Ethiopian victims who died as they made the long, hazardous journey on foot through Sudan during the late ’70s and into the ’80s is combined with Jerusalem Day, celebrated on the 28thof Iyar. In May, thousands of young Israelis, backed by members of the Knesset, journalists, and youth activists, massed peacefully in protest of police brutality and in remembrance of those who never made it to the Promised Land. Israeli photographer Galit Govezensky, captures historic scenes in a growingglobalawareness of police brutality. Her intimate documenting of indigenous cultures in Southeast Asia and rural Ethiopia has been shown in four solo exhibits, as well as published in many Hebrew magazines and journals. Read the article on Tikkun Daily and check out photographs in the gallery.

Comics for a New Economy: The Art and Activism of Kate Poole: In her innovative work, economist, artist, and activist Kate Poole delivers impassioned yet playful critiques of capitalism from a spiritual perspective. Poole has plunged headlong into the often murky intersection of economics and religion, drawing from Buddhist teachings as well as her own Jewish heritage. She has been working with Resource Generation and as a core leader ofRegenerative Finance, both organizations dedicated to providing information and resources that young people of wealth can use to redistribute land, wealth, and power. Through her comics, Poole hopes to communicate these tools in a format that is easy to distribute and challenge readers to align their everyday economic decisions with their spiritual values. To learn more, read Josh Brett’s blog post and visit the artist’s website.

Misrepresentations of Trans Women in Media: Identity does not always conform to conventional notions of male or female gender roles, but combines or moves between these.Even as a gay man, documentary photographer Brian O’Callaghan wasn’t always aware of the myriad of gender identities expressed by young Asians.There is a misconception that Trans women are performing femininity; but they are feminine in their minds and bodies.”It’s just different,” says one of O’Callaghan’s subjects, Minerva, who identified as a female from the beginning. “It just felt right, we have to respect each other’s feelings, no?” Born in Cork, Ireland,O’Callaghan is currently on the faculty of CMV College in Chiang Mai, Thailand and his work is available at JOJO Kobe Art Gallery. Read the story behind “Transitions” onTikkun Daily. For more information the “Transitions” exhibition, visit F/28′s website.

Embodying Our Humanity: Sins Invalid Promotes Disability Justice through Live Performance Arts:When Sins Invalid co-founders Patricia Berne and Leroy Franklin Moore Jr. put on a live event in San Francisco in 2006, they didn’t know it would blossom into a years-long collaboration. That night, performance artists with disablities from the Bay Area and beyond filled the stage with emotionally powerful, erotic work, leaving audience members deeply moved – some of them walking away in tears. Since then, Sins has blossomed into a robust political and arts organization. To learn more, read Annie Pentilla’s blog post and visit Sins Invalid’s website.

Lauren Szabo Finds Art Out Of The Mundane:“I would like to show my audience something that may go unnoticed as beautiful. I try to show them how I see the world. I hope to the elevate the experience of seeing the subject in it’s environment. I hope that the audience will wonder how the scene became to be the way it is. That is what I am constantly pondering when I am painting, and a big part of what sustains my ongoing interest. I usually begin painting my subject with little or no knowledge of its history, only to learn by research and drawing the story behind it.” To learn more, read Olivia Wise’s interview with the artist, Lauren Szabo, or visit theartist’s website.[brclear]

YoHana Bat Adam: The Spiritual Heartist: For years, YoHana Bat Adam didn’t call herself an artist. She jumped from one financially sustainable job to the next, from cleaning houses to working in a hair salon. “I was in survivor mode,” she says. But around eight to ten years ago, she can’t quite recall, Bat Adam decided to turn her love of art into a lifestyle. “One day, after doing so many things, I kind of realized, that’s it, from today I am an artist,” she says. To learn more, read Sara Weissman’s blog post and visit the artist’s website.

Creating Meaning Out of Trauma: Iraq War Veteran Aaron Hughes Turns to Art: Aaron Hughes didn’t know he wanted to be an artist. He was just twenty years old in 2003 when he was suddenly deployed to Iraq. As the Iraq war lingered on Hughes began to question why he and his fellow soldiers were occupying a country halfway around the world. But from his disillusionment sprang something new: the desire to create art. Hughes now devotes his life to art and activism, spreading his anti-war message around the world. To learn more, read Annie Pentilla’s blog post and visit the artist’s website .[brclear]

Jeff Gipe’s “Renegade Art”: Protesting Development Near Rocky Flats Plutonium Plant. When artist Jeff Gipe talks about his Cold War Horse – the renegade sculpture he created to protest the construction of a toll road and housing development near the former plutonium plant and superfund site Rocky Flats – what he has to say sounds incredible. The entire Rocky Flats’ story reads like a made-for-Hollywood movie, replete with leaking drums of nuclear waste, FBI raids, and so-called government cover-ups. Gipe grew up near the mysterious facility, leaving him with experiences he’ll never forget. To learn more, read Annie Pentilla’s blog post and visit the artist’s website.[brclear]

The Teapot that Saved the World: Art Activism by Ceramist Richard Notkin: For more than forty-five years ceramist Richard Notkin has been exploring the seeds of human conflict through images cast in clay. Abu Ghraib, World-War carpet bombings, Picasso’s Guernica, ears deafened by the aftermath of an atomic explosion – these are just a few of the images Notkin renders in his wall reliefs to reflect on the modern world he sees around him. What Notkin observes in the world reveals a troubling scene. To learn more read Annie Pentilla’s blog post.[brclear]

Printmaker Michele Ramirez Celebrates Central Valley Fieldworkers: For artist Michele Ramirez, California’s Central Valley is a beautiful place whose solitude she captures eloquently in her work. A great deal of history has gone into Ramirez’s prints, which celebrate the history of Mexican American fieldworkers who have been harvesting fruits and vegetables and feeding the U.S. since World War II. To learn more, read Annie Pentilla’s blog post or visit the artist’s website.[brclear]

Youth Find Healing in Community Art Program: At Youth Sprit Artworks, homeless and low-income youth partner with professional artists to create community and commercial art. For students, selling their art isn’t just about making money or learning skills – it’s also about self confidence, pride in one’s work, and a sense of achievement. And it’s also about healing. To learn more, read Annie Pentilla’s blog post or visit the program’s website.[brclear]

Art Through a Brasileira’s Eyes: Images of motherhood and the cycles of nature run through the paintings of Talita Suassuna, who also draws inspiration from the music of Brazil, where she grew up. To learn more, read Isabella Ohlmeyer’s blog post and explore the artist’s website.

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Closing the Cultural Divide: Comic creator, pop-culture aficionado, radio talk-show host, and immigration lawyer Sohaib Awan bridges the cultural gap between the East and West with his series Jinnrise, the story of a boy whose world is turned upside down when he encounters the world of the jinn. To learn more read Danielle Luaulu’s blog post and visit Sohaib Awan’s website.

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Mural Artist Daas Raises Awareness about Endangered Panda in Nepal: Transcontinenal muralist and entertainer Daas travels to Nepal to raise awareness about endangered species in Nepal and spread the love of art with the “Kolor Kathmandu Project.” To learn more, read Sarahrose Ministeri’s blog post and visit Daas’s website.

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Celebrating Cultural Fusion: Artist, cartoonist, illustrator, and animator Felipe “Feggo” Galindo celebrates the mingling of American and Mexican culture with his series entitled Manhatitlan. To learn more, read Danielle Luaulu’s blog post and visit Felipe Galindo’s website.

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Breaking Stereotypes: Photojournalist Sadaf Syed documents everyday moments in the lives of Muslim-American women in the United States and explores their many reasons for wearing hijabs. To learn more, read Hassina Obaidy’s blog post and visit Syed’s website.

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Murder Mysteries of the Civil Rights Era: Still Burning: Nolan Lee is passionate about creating art that yearns toward justice and redemption. In this online exhibit, he seeks to raise awareness about the many black and women who were murdered by white racist mobs during the civil rights era. To learn more, read Julie Lim’s blog post and visit Lee’s website.

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A Salvo Against War, Torture, and Racism: The Art of Mariano Gonzales: Mariano Gonzales, currently Art Department Chair at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, has spent much of his artistic career expressing progressive, provocative visions in his works. His cumulative efforts place him the front ranks of contemporary artists who combine high quality technical skill with trenchant social and political criticism and commentary. For more information, read Paul Von Blum’s article about Mariano Gonzales. Also, visit Mariano’s website.
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Cities and Strikes: Eric Drooker’s Art for the People Eric Drooker is a narrative painter, illustrator and graphic novelist from New York City. Based in Berkeley for the past decade, his work is used as imagery for strikes and protests around the world. To learn more, read Felicia Greiff’s blog post or explore the artist’s site.
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Photographing the West Bank Checkpoint: Photographer Claire Schwartz explores both sides of the Israeli West Bank Barrier and the Bethlehem/Jerusalem checkpoint in her series entitledisrael.checkpoint.palestine. To learn more, read Jill Rubin’s blog post or explore the artist’s website.
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Visuals for Healing: Janice Fried is a figurative illustrator based in New Jersey. Together with author Caroline Myss, she created a card deck of affirmations called “Wisdom for Healing.” She gets responses from people all over the world who have been touched by her illustrations, including therapists who use her images for group sessions and people with illnesses who use the images for daily meditation. You can learn more about Fried’s calming art in Felicia Greiff’s blog post or visit the artist’s web site.

An Artist of “Spiritual Uplift: Djembe & Canvas is an art teacher and 3D painter. His work is a fusion of rhythm and expression, and he hopes to one day open schools around the world that would teach children music and art. To learn more, read Adrienne Cacitti’s blog post and explore the artist’s website.

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Painting Towards a Higher Self: Malekeh Nayiny is a project-based artist who lives in works in Paris. She completed the featured series, titled S.O.S. (Save Our Souls), during a very hard time in her life. Painting these watercolor portraits of Gandhi helped her to find an inner path toward healing. To learn more, read Jaclyn Tobia’s blog post and explore the artist’s website.

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On the Hajj Pilgrimage: “Coming of age as a Muslim Woman in post 9/11 America, I have struggled with defining my own faith and explaining it to others in this climate of Islamophobia,” activist and graphic designer Sabiha Basrai writes. “I have tried to find my political voice and my spiritual center while dealing with the dual identities of the American Muslim experience.” In this photo essay, Basrai documents her experience on the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. To learn more, read her blog post about the experience.
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Tactile Legends, Global Ideas in Sculpture: Pamela Blotner is an artist based in Berkeley whose sculptures use mixed media to tangibly retell specific myths and legends from diverse cultures. Blotner has traveled as an illustrator for numerous human rights groups, including Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, and has taught at many colleges and universities across the country. To learn more, read Jaclyn Tobia’s blog post and explore the artist’s website.

Exploring the Perpetrator: In her sculpture series,Lorraine Bonner confronts the forces from her abusive past that threaten her spirit and health. With her sculptures, the Oakland resident explores domination both in her personal life and in the political realm. She explains that with careful attention, we can remove domination from the deepest parts of our selves and our communities. To learn more, read Zena Andreani’s blog post and explore the artist’s website.
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“A Purely Spiritual Experience”: the Art of Yoram Raanan: Through surreal depictions of humans and nature, Yoram Raanan uses paint to explore spirituality and to connect to the life-force that exists in all humans. His paintings express the sacred in all of God’s creations while also trying to reach through the canvas to connect with the viewer on a personal level. To learn more, read Sarah Stafford’s post or visit the artist’s website. [brclear]

America’s Seven Daily Sins: Through natural and surreal imagery, Norm Magnusson uses paintings and photographs to both provoke and inspire. Bridging the gap between art and political activism, his works frequently engage observers with social commentary in creative and original ways. To learn more, read Laura Beckman’s blog post or visit the author’s website. [brclear]

A Star is Born: Metaphorical Portraits of America: Questioning our consciousnes, Carl Gopalkrishnan uses a style of prophetic surrealism to explore our waking dreams as reflected in our public and private myths. To learn more, read Laura Beckman’s blog post and explore the artist’s website. [brclear]

Teetering on the Edge of Creation: Painting the Zohar: In a series of over one hundred paintings, artist Michael Hafftka has created a visual exegesis of the Zohar — an exploration of this Kabbalistic text that is at once spiritual and personal. To learn more, read Laura Beckman’s blog post and visit the artist’s website. [brclear]
Assembling Stories — The Rubble Art of Dominique Moody: Well before the national recycling movement began, black artists in Los Angeles turned street rubble into beautiful art with a powerful message. Dominique Moody follows in their footsteps with her evocative assemblages. To learn more, read Paul Von Blum’s blog post and visit the artist’s website.
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The Medium is the Matzo: Like a three-dimensional Haggadah, this ambitious art installation seeks to bring some of Passover’s central themes into the context of contemporary social action. To learn more, read artist Melissa Shiff’s article and visit her website. [brclear]

Between Heaven and Earth — An Illuminated Torah Commentary: Ilene Winn-Lederer spent five years researching the history, images, and commentaries (both classic and modern) of the narratives of the Torah before creating the 120 phantasmagorical, full-color drawings that make up Between Heaven and Earth – An Illuminated Torah Commentary. We are excited to share a small sampling of these drawings on Tikkun Daily. To learn more about Winn-Lederer’s artwork, read Nina Beth Cardin’s article in Tikkun and visit the artist’s website. [brclear]

Peoplescapes and Travelscapes: Through her exceedingly detailed paintings of people and places, Nancy Calef aims to illuminate the distinctiveness of individuals, the connectedness of humanity, and the challenges facing American society. To learn more, read Mia Sullivan’s blog post and visit the artist’s website. [brclear]

Connecting the Dots of History: Massachusetts-based artist Pamela Chatterton-Purdy sees godliness made manifest in the Civil Rights Movement’s struggle for justice. She has devoted the last seven years to a project called “Icons of the Civil Rights Movement … Connecting the Dots,” that venerates the movement’s heroes – both the known and unknown. To learn more about her work, read Lorenzo Estebanez’s blog post and visit the artist’s website. [brclear]

From Fleeting to Permanent: With paint and persistence, Marcie Paper layers the details of her daily life over periods of time to produce art that represents a conglomeration of isolated moments. To learn more read Mia Sullivan’s blog post and visit Marcie Paper’s website.[brclear]

Communing with Allah in nature: Bay Area artist Davi Barker blends fine art and digital mediums to create fantastical compositions of landscapes, Islamic sites and calligraphy. To learn more read Akile Kabir’s blog post and visit the artist’s website.[brclear]

Rocks as Canvas: Many centuries ago, the indigenous San of South Africa used the Cederberg Mountains as canvas for paintings that depicted animals, spiritual dances and shamanistic trances. To learn more, read the article by Irene Shaland, which describes the history and significance of these ancient rock paintings. [brclear]

What Cannot Be Taken Away: Artist Evan Bissell worked with Bay Area fathers and youth to produce portraits documenting how incarceration has impacted their lives. To learn more, visit Evan’s website and read Alana’s blog post.

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The World Is Your Oracle: Mother-daughter team Linnea and Nancy Vedder-Shults have collaboratively created a divination deck intended not to forecast the future but rather to put us in touch with our own perceptions and intuitions in the present. To learn more, read Nancy’s blog post and her article in Matrifocus, which includes links to instructions for how to use the cards.

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Art and Remembrance: Holocaust survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz created beautiful narrative quilts to illustrate her amazing story of survival. Now her daughters are sharing her story. To learn more, read Natalie Wendt’s blog post and explore the Art & Remembrance website.
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DIY Land Art: Richard Shilling is a British Land Artist who makes surprising sculptures in the landscape. Using only natural materials, this artist spreads beauty, has a political message and connects people to one another. To find out more read Alex Chaves’ blog post, and visit Shilling’s website.[brclear]
Art Vs. Oil: Olivia Bouler is a 11-year-old girl who has turned her love of birds and devastation from the BP Oil Spill into a charitable art project. We showcase some of the bird drawings she is making to fund raise for the Audubon Society. To learn more about Olivia and her project, read Alex Chaves’s blog post and explore Olivia’s website.[brclear]

Spiritual Mystery: Michael Ferris gives discarded chairs, tables, and futon frames new life through his art, turning them into richly ornately inlaid sculptures that hint at the spiritual interiority of his subjects. To learn more, read Alex Chaves’s blog post and explore the artist’s website.
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Public Play: Murat Musulluoglu’s “Welcome” series — an interactive art installation — draws strangers into playful and creative interaction with each other in New York City’s public parks. To learn more, read Alex Chaves’s blog post and explore the artist’s website.

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Finding Soul in the Street Art of C215: Street Art gets a refreshing new face with the work of French Artist, C215. His brightly colored graffiti works can be seen in cities all over the world. Healing the streets and dedicating his work to his daughter, C215 stands out among our notion of what graffiti can do. To learn more read Alex Chaves’ blog post and visit C215’s website.

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All Faiths Beautiful: This selection of pieces from the American Visionary Art Museum exhibit in honor of Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi celebrates the diversity of faiths and showcases works by self-taught artists who were moved by the power of their beliefs to pick up a paintbrush or pencil. To learn more, explore the American Visionary Art Museum’s website.

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Divine Connection: Peter Lewis seeks to inspire feelings of unity and divine connection through his paintings, which he describes as “artwork brought forth through meditation unto the Most High.” To learn more, read Phil Barcio’s profile of his work and visit the artist’s website.

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Natural Activism: David Bygott uses Photoshop montages to express a sharp critique of militarism and materialism. To learn more, read Phil Barcio’s profile of his work.

 

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√Other: Beverly Naidus’s work uses traditional ad copy to examine “fear of difference” through media images. To see more, check out our gallery, read Phil Barcio’s blog post, and visit the artist’s blog.

 

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One City’s Trash: Nothing is wasted, buried, or burned at San Francisco’s “Recology” dump. Artists work alongside the recycling and compost facilities to transform scavenged materials from the city’s waste stream into beautiful works. Read Phil Barcio’s blog post and visit the Recology website.

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Positive Art: One artist paints with his own infected blood, transforming his disease into moving artwork. Others use watercolors, monoprints, acrylic, wood, x-rays, or photographs. Together, they express the hope, pain, joy, and heartbreak of living with AIDS. Read Phil Barcio’s blog post and visit the Queer Arts website.

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Face to Face: Robert Bergman’s photographic portraits “bring us face to face with other human beings,” writes Tikkun associate editor Peter Gabel. “The encounters made possible by Bergman’s photos provide sudden moments of the discovery of mutual Presence.” Visit Bergman’s exhibit and read about his work.

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For many more Art Gallery features, visit our Art Gallery Archive.

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