Artist Statement

My art reflects the mixed emotions that arise from being an immigrant. The ambiguity between my will to stay close to my origins, and at the same time embrace my new surroundings is prominent in my work. In my search for a "home", a place to belong to, I am walking through my inner worlds, unfolding layer after layer.

Ever since arriving from Israel to New York, I used my art as a mean to search and re-define my origins and essence in this world. It is a journey through the many things that I am: a woman, an Israeli, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a friend, an artist, and a professional. This process happens unconsciously and consciously with the act of painting and writing my feelings and memories.

While creating my art I always start from a place that I didn't know before. There is no plan behind the paintings. Every stage is a bridge to the next one, and I learn to relate to the results, feel them and leave them on the canvas.

The main painting action is to move from one layer to another and to develop a code of symbols, a language that I did not know before. My paintings are large. They sometimes seem to me like a full-size window with a view to the subconscious arena out of which I create. The acrylics and pencils that I use perfectly fit my impulsive, expressive, and sometimes explosive drives. Being fast to dry and receptive to multiple layers, the acrylics serve not only as paint but also as connective tissue to the previous layer of memory.

Yehudit Feinstein Mentesh grew up in Israel and lives in the New York area since 2000. She earned her BFA from the School of Visual Arts (2002) and her MA in Psychoanalysis from the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis in 2006. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three sons.