Category: Reviews, Interviews, References

Remembrance is an essential part of humanity, a lifeline, literally, for those who are gone and those who are living and remember.

First published: The Israel National News, 18 September 2020

What is the memory dimension in contemporary art? And yet more specifically, in contemporary Jewish art? We can have a look on its sources and genesis via a special art series called Songs of Our Souls that I have been creating from 2017 onward.

The artworks in the series were not planned as such. The idea to develop them into the series arose after the first work in this technique had been created.

The work was in homage to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and at the same time, it is also a tribute to the Jewish people as a whole. Arutz Sheva published the work at the time.

Since then, Songs of Our Souls has become a sizable series comprising 20 works, and the number is growing. Some of it is presented in this essay.

Living Memory

When memory is living and functioning, not only do we add more depth to our words but we uplift our own lives, our level of existence – if only because we are re-activating and bringing back the energy of people who are gone.

Those people who appeared in my works have lived and passed away under so different circumstances. It happened throughout the layers of the past. They were here, in this world, they were laughing, crying, thinking, speaking. They had their thoughts and hopes. In the reflective time of a Jewish year closing, and a new one to emerge soon, it is fitting to think about them all, with a hope that perhaps, somebody one day will remember some of us, too.

Remembrance is an essential part of humanity. It is a lifeline, literally, for both those who are gone and those who are living and remember.

My Cloud View work represents the idea of the Songs of Our Souls well. It paints the space around us with images of people who are appearing there in our memory and imagination.Inna Rogatchi (C). Cloud View. 2020.I. Rogatchi

Surprise Messages from Above

In all of the many works that I have created in this technique, not a single face did I draw without seeing it first, the face’s own appearance transpiring from a template prepared for drawings. As the series grew, more and more faces began appearing out for me to draw them, in the works on different subjects, from the Kotel to the Shoah, and from prayers to history.

In this work dedicated to remembrance of the strength of Jewish spirit exemplified at Masada, the stones of Israel are full of the imprints of numerous Jewish faces, young and old, men, women and children. They all are here. It only takes an effort to see them around us.Inna Rogatchi (C). Masada I. 2020.I. Rogatchi

Similar sensations were experienced by me when I was working on the pieces originated from and connected with the Kotel.

As I was contemplating over the drawings, all of the sudden, time stopped. The faces started to appear from a known template. It was happening on almost every stone of the Kotel which I know so very well, and which is arguably the most important place on this earth for me.

It is difficult to verbalise the feeling of gratitude that overwhelmed me at that moment.

Similar sensations were experienced by me when I was working on the pieces originated from and connected with the Kotel.

As I was contemplating over the drawings, all of the sudden, time stopped. The faces started to appear from a known template. It was happening on almost every stone of the Kotel which I know so very well, and which is arguably the most important place on this earth for me.

It is difficult to verbalise the feeling of gratitude that overwhelmed me at that moment.https://fc301cd7062b06c4859509020d5fecfa.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

I was thinking of devoted Jews coming to the Kotel under any circumstances and despite all the risk involved, from the time the courtyard of the Second Temple was extended by Herod and until the establishment of the State of Israel, all those two thousand, two hundred and twenty years.

I was thinking of the Jews who were unable to come to the Kotel while seeing it so close, during the twenty years of Jordanian control between 1948 and 1967.

I was thinking of the horrific days and nights back in 70 CE when our Second Temple was burned by the Romans in a tectonic catastrophe for Jewry and Judaism, with only these 50 meters of the Kotel surviving. How lonely and terrified those stones must have been at the time. But what a strength the Kotel bears, becoming the ultimate source of ultimate strength to so many generations from 70 CE onward.Inna Rogatchi (C). The Kotel and Its Faces. 2020I. Rogatchi

Prayer Hours

The other work concentrated on prayer and Kotel is dedicated to dear friend, special artist and great humanist, late Pat Mercer Hutchens, brave author of the unique Re-Visiting Auschwitz project.

When I started to work on it, the faces emerged from the Kotel wall on the template. The first time I produced the previous edition of the work for my Shining Souls project back in 2016, there were no faces. It travelled to the world being shown at several exhibitions, without them. Now the faces appeared. I was only happy to draw them with respect and love.

Inna Rogatchi ©. Prayer Hour II. 2020.

Ghetto Stories, Living Faces

Initially, one of my works from the Ghetto Waltz collection selected for the exhibition in Italy, was also without faces. But a short while after, when I started to work on it for the exhibition, to send it to Rome, these faces were there. I just had no courage to ignore them. Especially on the subject of the Shoah.

I do believe that it is important to be distinct in our memory on the Shoah. The more distinct, the better. What else can we do for them, after all?

Inna Rogatchi ©. Crying Heaven. 2019.

The similar thinking and idea is transparent in another work which is about our Jewish memory, Ebbing, Tiding ( 2018). The title echoes the waves of our memory reflecting on our history, with its ebbing and tiding that interconnects us each to each other.

First published in The Times of Israel, August 19, 2020. The link to the publication in TOI is here.

Using art to reflect on the past year, amid the balance of good and evil, without the luxury of making excuses for myself, is sobering, and yet truly energizing.

Before the New Year, For the New Year

The significance of various periods in our Jewish calendar makes our life thoughtful, reflective and meaningful. With regard to the inner denotation of Elul, it is an unparalleled time in Jewish calendar. On Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Pesach, Hanukkah, Purim, Shavuot, our reflections are renewed annually while still being on the same subjects, events and sensations. During Elul, we are introspecting, or are supposed to do it, the previous, just lived on, year, with analyzing it and ourselves, with thinking, planning, hoping, aspiring as the days of every Elul are getting us closer to Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish annual border-line between our immediate past and our immediate future, the time of a year filled with thoughts, regrets, late understanding, and ever popping up hopes. So there is never the same Elul, all these 29 days of the month preceding Rosh HaShanah, for each and every of us. And thus, it is always interesting because of the authentic novelty and almost total personification of every given Elul. 

Aspects of Elul

In a popular and useful special spiritual chart of Elul known as Elulgram, every day of our pre-Rosh HaShanah month is defined with a verb commanding a day of our mental preparation for entering the new year of our lives. Two models of Elulgram are known, which are slightly different in the order of the dominant actions of a day. More logical seems to be the one which starts from Prepare for Elul 1st and ends with Return for Elul 29th. 

From the 29 days of Elul defined in the chart, only three days do not have a direct connection to the process of creativity, the days expecting us to count, to forgive and to judge (ourselves), although the last imperative is a part of the creative process, but rather in its post-creative period. 

The remaining 26 days of Elul imply the qualities that a creative person is busy with organically. 

My interest in the mutual impact of spirituality and art while thinking on the month of Elul is to reflect and to show this specific inter-influence. 

The imperatives for the days of Elul in our activities and thoughts could be divided, from the point of view of creative process, into three groups:

Preparations & Actions, needed for creative process; Results of the creative process; and Emotional Outcome of the creative process, during the month of Elul. These groups in their essence can be also defined as Prepare, Change, and Hope. 

Prepare, Change, Hope

Prepare

The first group, Preparations & Actions, includes the following days marked by certain actions we are expected, and recommended to take: to prepare, act, know, do, be, hear, and see (as a common deed, philosophically, too), learn, ask, dare, end-begin (also, as a continuing process of two days emphasizing uninterrupted way of thoughts, feelings and intentions). 

In my work Challenges. Questions and Answers (2020), I am addressing this group of intentions, which lead us, during Elul. Inna Rogatchi(C). Challenges. Questions & Answers. Crayons Luminance, oil pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 40 cm. 2020. Hidden Windows series. Private collection, London, the UK.

 In another work, Life-line I (2020), I reflected on the process of self-introspection graphically, when a person amid the daily routine is stopped for a moment to check upon his or her own actions — with oneself, hopefully with one’s better self, calmer, deeper,  more reflective one, one from another dimension, or another aspect. There is no more authentic time for doing it than Elul. Inna Rogatchi (C). Lifeline I. Lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, oil pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 40 x 30 cm. 2020. Tree of Sparks series.

 Change

This group of our mental and spiritual efforts that lie in every act of creative process includes such definitions as accept, trust, remember, awaken, change (twice during the month of Elul, the only effort, which is defined for two days of the month), give, and return. 

While analyzing our concrete lives, we are always referring, even if subconsciously so, to the balance between Good and Evil. Sometime, an artist can see it in a graphic way, too. Inna Rogatchi (C). Balance Between Good and Evil. Crayons Luminance, lapice pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. Tree of Sparks series. 2020.

Even in our philosophical approach to life, it sometimes (quite rarely, actually) looks like a composition in black and white, the shape of polar substances is so similar often. It is all detail, nuance, intentions and motivations that are not that visible, most of the time. One really needs to have his or her moral compass in perpetually working order to distinct in often amorphous and sometimes quite similar shapes of the forces of good and those of the opposite, in order to live one’s life decently. To be able to awake at the decisive moment, to trust your moral compass, to follow it, to change one’s trajectory if necessary. Inna Rogatchi (C). Balance Between Good and Evil. Fragment 2. 2020.

This artwork is about this ever-present challenge for every one of us. 

We are living in a complex world, more so when we think about the processes ever going on different energies’ existence and functioning, in all too familiar, but very intricate process. Not always the circumstances of our lives and events of it are depending on us, but we, the people, are the unique kind of living creatures who do have a choice. Some of us realize it better, some worse, some are getting it earlier in their lives, some later on, but the existence of the choice is the highest privilege in human life, even if a choice could be a dramatic, or difficult one. Still, we are able to choose, to make a decision, to undertake a deed. It is  recognized in our mental preparations throughout Elul in mentioning some definitions from this group of our efforts: to trust, to accept, to change. Inna Rogatchi (C). Contraction II. Oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton Museum Velin 315 mg paper. 33 x 48 cm. Tree of Sparks series. 2019.

In my work Contraction II  (2020), interpreting the process of contracting energy in the complex space of infinity before the Creation, for giving space for Creation to happen, the faces of people appeared there is a reminding of our humanity, our presence in life, the presence that we ought to remember about despite human fragility, and actually, because of it. These faces are as if signalling us, both from the past and also from the future, that in our space of this infinity, it is humanity that defines our existence. Inna Rogatchi (C). Contraction II. Fragment 1. 2019.

And of course, Elul is about remembrance. Every month in our Jewish calendar is truly about remembrance, and every day and every night, too. During Elul, however, our remembrance deepens, as all our efforts do. Such is this special month. 

When we slow down — as we supposed to do during the coming 29 days of Elul annually — our memory works its own way, and it could be as unexpected as it gets. But in the case of the Jewish people, who are keen to honor their dramatic history, memory is essentially warm. I do believe it. Inna Rogatchi (C). Memory Wind II. Ol pastel, wax pastel, watercolor, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. Tree of Sparks series. 30 x 40 cm. 2020.

My work, Memory Wind II (2020), is about that inner light or the other people, those who lived before us, those whom we remember — not only during Elul, but in the time of Elul, with an extra effort — that makes our memory warm and special. Inna Rogatchi (C). Memory Wind II. Fragment V. 2020.

Hope

The same memory that provides our life with meaning also warms it up. This enduring warmth of memory is also reflected in my other work, Life of Sparks I. We know that sparks of many souls who were living in this world once still exist. It is up to us to perceive them, to recognize them, and to feel their presence. When memory is warm, it is also warming up. The world becomes more comfortable, more accommodative, and nicer to live this way. Inna Rogatchi (C). Life of Sparks II. Watercolor, oil pastel, wax pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton Museum Velin 315 mg paper. 33 x 48 cm. Tree of Sparks series. 2019.

When thinking of the third group of spiritual dimensions of our lives during Elul, the group that embraces such categories as bless, believe, pray, love and hope, I am facing a certain tautology here: normally, soulful art is based on those things, Elul or not. Still, this month of our mental and spiritual preparations for the next year of our lives do imply an extra weight for these main expressions of inner-selves, for many people. Inna Rogatchi (C). Life of Sparks II. Fragment 2. 2019.

In the special time of year, when we are doing a year-back check and re-examining our pros and cons, with this kind of honesty, when a human being is talking to himself or herself, without having the luxury to create various excuses, the understanding of some patterns of our lives sometimes flashes in the most unexpected way. In the space of this ever-present balance of good and evil, such understanding, even if it could be sobering, still is healthy and truly energizing. It can be helpful and it can be encouraging. And it can be beautiful too, as the process of achievement of clarity of mind is a beautiful thing. 

This is the theme of my artwork, Beauty of Understanding (2020) .  Inna Rogatchi (C). Beauty of Understanding. Watercolor, oil pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 40 x 30 cm. 2020. Tree of Sparks series.

Quest

The summary of our different, but still one-vectored efforts during the 29 days of Elul can be formulated in one word: quest. Soul’s quest.

With the annual process of self-introspection, we are coming with open-ended results, which we do not necessarily understand in full detail, nor are those results fixed ever, in our ongoing stream of lives. Our efforts in preparing, our readiness to change, our striving to hope all come together in this massive quest of our souls.Inna Rogatchi (C). Soul’s Quest. Watercolor, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton Museum Velin 315 mg paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.

What would the next year be like for me, my family, my friends? Towards the end of Elul, this quest gets more anxious, but also more hopeful, completely in accord with humanity’s vulnerable, but enduring nature.Inna Rogatchi (C). Soul’s Quest. Fragment. 2020.

Towards the end of Elul, our understanding of ourselves gets more structured, and our hopes are getting its more daring shape, our request — and our quest — gets simpler, more open, and disarming.

I have tried to reflect on it from the artistic perspective. One big plus in such a reflection is that it always provides a wide space for interpretation, being able to accommodate, I hope, aspirations of so many different views.

Especially in so much daring, but also such hope, in this special month of Elul.

First published in The Times of Israel, July 29, 2020. The link to the publication is here.

GLANCE  INTO THE HISTORY & PRAYERS VIA ARTWORKS

Instrument of Survival

The longer we live, the more reflective every Tisha B’Av gets. It is a natural development of course, on a border of cliche: the more one knows, the more one reflects.   Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av in Hebrew calendar, is so special day for Jewish people who care about their history that it can be called an annual contra-point for those of us who are not indifferent to the reasons for our falls and the search for ways out of it. 

Every year, Tisha B’Av is perceived differently which is not that surprising, too. We do know that the one of the most amazing things in spiritual dimension of Judaism is the fact that in overwhelming majority of cases, as weekly Parasha almost always refers to what’s going around us and in the world with stunning synchronising, as Tisha B’Av annually refers to a number of events and developments around us in a most relevant in-tune. 

And, as it is natural for a human being, many of us refer to history in our thoughts finding parallels, looking for essential triggers, analysing. And – recalling, commemorating, thinking back. 

When memory is living and functioning one, not only we add more decency to this word of ours, but we uplift our own lives, the level of one’s existence – if only because of a simple reason of re-activating and bringing back the energy of people who are gone. 

Those people lived and passed away under so different circumstances. It had happened throughout the layers of the past. They were here, in this world, they were laughing, crying, thinking, speaking. They had their thoughts and hopes. Perhaps, somebody once would remember some of us, too. 

Remembrance is an essential part of humanity. It is a life-rope, literally, for both those who are gone and those who are living and remembering. 

In my understanding, memory is an ultimate instrument of survival. Doubly so, for Jewish people, with our painful, so deeply painful history. 

The full text of the essay can be read here.

First published in The Times of Israel, June 7, 2019. The link to the publication is here.

There are endless variations on the Jewish thought with regard to, around and because of Shavuot, the essential celebration for the People of the Book.

There are those who are claiming that “Judaism did not start from Abraham, but from the Mount Sinai”; those who are trying to re-construct in their houses and synagogues the fountain of beauty on Shavuot when Mount Sinai has become covered with roses at the moment, just after the Revelation. Every year, so many men in Israel and numerous synagogues around the world would be staying at the study halls for an entire night, studying with a special twist of celebration, and being uplifted.

Every year, Elie Wiesel would come to visit to Israel at this certain holiday. His rule was to celebrate Shavuot, the unique moment that has actually made us the People of the Book, in all and many senses of it, in Israel, to spend that sleepless night among his friends here.

Shavuot is unique among our holidays because it is the celebration of the moment when an intellectual effort has become a conscious behavioral code of a nation. It’s also unique because the moral matrix with all its practical implications had been given to our nation in an awesome act of High Power, in the episode of an unparalleled miracle. On Shavuot, we are celebrating that Gift of Mercy that has formatted not only Jewish spiritual genome as we know it, but has also laid the most essential bricks as the basis of human civilisation in a broader sense of it.

A lot of celebrate, a lot to think about, a lot to ponder on – that’s why many of our men are spending this special night at the synagogues.

In my series of art works on Jewish Mysticism, I have addressed this special night creating The Shavuot Night Trilogy. It consist of three art panels depicting: The Shavuot Night Window, the one which is opened for those who are earnest in their quest for the Torah and its lessons on this night only; Transition, the period of intense personal search into the Torah and its depths and various aspects, which are getting a person to the qualifiedly different status of his personality; and Memories on this very night during one’s life, the memories which are keeping us connected to our people.

The artistic view on the Jewish Mysticism with regard to Shavuot and that special Shavuot Night looks like this:Inna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 1. The Window. Watercolour, crayons a encre on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic Views series. 2018-2019Inna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 2. Transition. Crayons a encre on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. 2018-2019. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic View seriesInna Rogatchi (C). The Shavuot Night Trilogy. Triptych. Part 3. Memories. Silver, pigment of aluminium on original archival print on cotton paper. 80 x 100 cm. 2018-2019. Jewish Mysticism: Artistic View.

Chag Shavuot Sameach to everyone.

June 7, 2019, Jerusalem

Excerpts from Inna Rogatchi’s essay, January 2019

For the Time and The Place

In the video present, there are also fine art photography and fine art photography collage works. They are mine. They are referring to the places of the utmost atrocities during the Holocaust, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania. Later on, the collection was added with the works from Hungary. I have a strong feeling that the less Holocaust survivors we are having around us, the more motivated I am to do more and more art works which would help us to remember. It is as if my eyes are seeing the places and their scars from Shoah more tangibly every next year.Inna Rogatchi (C). This Kind of Forest. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. Black Milk & Dark Stars series. 2014.

We have created this video as our artistic dialogue.  Working in different techniques and genres on the same theme is mutually supportive. When the genres are as close, as the paths of visual art, paintings and drawing, from one side, and fine art photography and collage from the other, the dimension of paintings provides depth for art photography, while art photography sets the context for paintings.As the result, the volume is synthesised and  the effort and the theme gets a deeper prospect.  

In our family, we do not need a certain, designated one day in a year to remember the Shoah. We both were brought with our both families’ sleepless crying nights over loved ones whom our families did not manage to save from the Nazis and their so very willing collaborators in Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Austria and France. We remember everyone  of the Six Millions every minute of our lives. But on this day, the world is set to bring the conversation about it out. And it is certainly sobering and much needed practice which we support by every mean we can. 

For the Name and The Place short art film, musical video-essay, had been created in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Yad Vashem.  Would it be 70, 80 or more years since the Shoah have had place, we always will be looking in its Mirror. 

Inna Rogatchi (C). Danube Step. Budapest. Hungary. Fine Art Photography. Limited Edition. Blak Milk & Dark Stars series. 2016.