Lisa Edelstein - Dance Me to the End of the World
By: Lauren Steinberg
Tucked away on Chung King Road in Los Angeles’ Chinatown plaza, Charlie James Gallery presents Lisa Edelstein’s “Dance Me to the End of the World,” a new exhibition of watercolor paintings based on her family’s 1970s photo albums. The photorealistic paintings memorialize intimate moments that are both specific to Edelstein’s upbringing and universal in their portrayal of a particular post-war Jewish immigrant experience in the United States. A multidisciplinary storyteller, Edelstein is a writer and actor turned painter, who’s family fled discrimination and violence in Europe in search of safety and success in the US.
From a tightly cropped composition of carefree boys lighting shabbat candles to a vernacular-style portrait of an older couple posing in front of a buttercream-colored Chrysler, Edelstein’s paintings fuse nostalgia, the American dream and middle-class Jewish life of some fifty odd years ago. “Twister,” for example, depicts a gaggle of adolescent girls laughing as they spin the wheel of the classic board game. The sunshine yellows, grassy greens and cornflower denim blues of the girls’ wardrobe pop against a wood-paneled wall. The scene points to the instantly recognizable finished basement where American teens can get into all sorts of trouble, free from their monitoring parents. The Kodachrome palette and depiction of candid play are reminiscent of an episode of the Wonder Years.
In “Rites,” a monumental pink wedding cake sits on a table in front of a few unposed gentlemen in their finest brown vested suits and wide-collared shirts. The vignette is complete with braided challah in the foreground, the ceremonial Jewish bread. Coming-of-age marked by Jewish tradition is a common theme throughout the exhibition.
Edelstein’s work begs the question: what can a painting tell us that a photograph cannot? In Edelstein’s imaginative form of storytelling, the photographic vignette is lifted from its documentary status, no longer archived on the pages of the dusty family album. Watercolor softens detail, but in Edelstein’s interpretations, colors are heightened and textures and patterns are emphasized, creating an impressionistic, dream-like recalling of time and place.
Furthermore, the paintings offer consecrated Jewish life, rituals and symbols. It’s a welcome, and frankly, brave surprise at a time when these themes are all too often white-washed in the contemporary art world. Edelstein’s paintings are much larger than the typical hand-held scale of the 4x6 family snapshot. Ranging from 14 to 75 inches, these works are at once tender and unbashful.
“Dance Me to the End of the World” is on view at Charlie James Gallery until February 15.
