Panel Discussion and Opening: Fractured Epics – History Painting and Imaginary Portraits by Joel Silverstein

December 12, 2012- January 27, 2013.

Fractured Epics: History Painting and Imaginary Portraits, a series by Joel Silverstein
Presented by The Columbia/Barnard Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life and The Jewish Art Salon

Opening Reception: Wednesday Dec 12th, 6-8:30 pm
7:30-8:15 pm Roundtable Discussion,  Jewish Narrative Painting with members of The Jewish Art Salon:
Joel Silverstein, Exhibition Artist, Senior Curator/Founding Member

Elke Reva Sudin, Artist, Exec. Director of Jewish Art Now, Executive Member.
Yona Verwer, Artist, President/Co-founder.
Eden Morris, Artist, Member.
Moderated by Richard McBee, Artist/Critic, the Jewish Press, Founding Member.

The Columbia/Barnard Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life
606 West 115th Street, New York, NY, 10025

The Exhibition Fractured Epics proposes a world of botched promise but ultimate redemption, as the artist recalls his life growing up in Brooklyn, NY near Coney Island. In over 30 narrative works, Silverstein addresses central themes of autobiography, memory, visual ephemera and the Book of Exodus as related in the Hebrew Bible. Collage and acrylics are mixed with great skill in works ranging from one to fourteen feet in length.

Employing a figurative expressionist and Magic Realist vocabulary, the artist invokes the concept of “History Painting,” the one time summit of French Academic painting as well as the mid- Twentieth Century Hollywood movie Epic. He accomplishes this relying on compositions assembled from nature, snapshots, old National Geographic photos, action figures, comics and collage. Here, myth and the imagination merge in creating unsettling images of loss and transformation.

A notable figure in the contemporary Jewish Art scene, Silverstein has Co-Curated four exhibitions which culminated in The Dura Europos Project for the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art and the UJA Federation, NY. The Dura Project was chosen by CAJM, the Council of American Jewish Museums for their annual conference in February, 2011. The catalogue for Fractured Epics is currently available, with an interview by Richard McBee.