[Photos] BE! (הְוֵי) Installations, sculptures, and video work by Sara Erenthal

BE! (הְוֵי) Installations, sculptures, and video work by Sara Erenthal.
Curated by Marine Cornuet.

Gallery hours: Thu-Friday 5-7pm, Sat 2-8pm, Sun 3-6pm
Opening Reception: August 21, 2014, 6pm-9pm

On View: August 21, 2014 – September 13, 2014

SoapBox Gallery
636 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY.
More on www.soapboxgallery.org

Raised in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community, Erenthal escaped to avoid an arranged marriage at age 17 and was subsequently rejected by her entire community. The work exhibited at Soapbox Gallery tells her story and exposes her journey from a completely controlled environment towards her present life as an independent female artist.

Playing with textures and materials often drawn from memories of her past life and reminiscent of traditionally domestic tasks, Erenthal creates installations and raw multi-media pieces that evoke the weight of doctrines and the struggle towards self-determination, while crossing the boundaries of simple storytelling. Her large-scale, immersive works suggest dark and oppressive feelings accentuated by the use of vertical lines, and at others times create the sensation of luminous hope. Her smaller work, often made of repurposed objects, give abstract visual snippets of her transformation from a braided young girl to a fully autonomous woman.

Exploring the themes of censorship and battle for free speech in very personal ways, BE! (הְוֵי) gives the viewer a powerful example of how art can rise above a personal story, ask universal questions, and create a strong impression that lasts well beyond the gallery walls.

Sara Erenthal is a visual artist and performer. To avoid an arranged marriage she fled from the rabidly anti-Zionist Neturei Karta community in Brooklyn. She found solace as a fugitive in the arms of the Israeli Defense Force, while living on a left-wing kibbutz. Her outlook is influenced by her wanderings through the streets of India, Israel, and the United States and her journey from bondage to freedom. Her work, which began with primitive pen doodles and progressed to more sophisticated experimentation and performative actions, expresses the intersection of traveling and travailing. Raised in a world that stifles individual creativity, Sara finds liberation through the process of making art.

Her work has been included in group shows around the city, including at Jewish Art Now, Footsteps Organization, For Locals by Locals Crown Heights, Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, and at Bushwick open studios. She gives creative expression workshops and participates in public art projects such as the Brooklyn Recycle Project.