Chassidic Art Institute
375 Kingston Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11213; (718) 774 9149
Noon – 7pm Sunday – Thursday; Friday until 2pm; Until January 28, 2001

There is something more. These paintings are still lifes; the objects are clearly set up, isolated and assembled to be painted as a studied arrangement. But it is the artifice of the still life as a motif that lends it the power it has over us. It is an artificial stage setting that is meant to convey a metaphorical meaning. And how do we get at the meaning, aside from the pre-packaged religious symbolism that is obvious in the specific objects chosen. It is the composition that becomes the bearer of meaning. And here these paintings assume their authority.

What is composition? Composition is the arrangement of shapes and forms that constitute the pictorial structure of a painting. Composition is the grammar of a pictorial experience. Composition is the universal language of all painting, understood by insiders and outsiders. Without composition the expression of a visual work stammers and stutters in inarticulation. These paintings are articulate and therefore leap to life in their compositional complexity.

Daily Devotion (1999) presents a horizontal arrangement of a felt hat, a pile of open sefarim, a tallis bag and a tallis; all set on an old fashioned table. This swath of pious symbols is held in tension by a plain empty chair that is placed before the entire ensemble. Therefore it is the foreground that provides the initial tension (or dialogue) in the painting. And the foreground almost always represents the viewer. But what is it that breaks out of the horizontal – foreground dialogue? It is the tallis that, with the pointed tzitzis at the bottom corner, plunges to the bottom edge of the painting and becomes an independent entity, a live actor among the still life quietude. What is the mitzvah of tzitzis about, if not the embodiment of all mitzvos, something that breaks through the distinction between the mitzvos and the solitary individual. It is a reminder, as we see the tzitzis, to return to the mitzvos. And that is how the tallis operates in the painting, stopping the eye in its travel from left to right (the usual way one ÒreadsÓ a painting). The firm white triangle causes us, seated in the foreground chair, to return to the objects of learning and devotion that are in front of us. Chava RothÕs composition elevates these symbolic objects into a metaphorical narrative of teshuva.

For Every Generation (2000) is an especially personal painting. These Passover objects all belonged to the artistÕs father. They are placed in a stately procession on the table parallel to the viewer. The Haggadah, kittel, wine decanter, the three matzos, the seder plate and finally the matzah cover. The painting is a play of circles and rectangles. The imposing earth red rectangle of the Haggadah dominates the field from the calm vantage point of the upper left. This is in turn reflected in the fabric rectangle of the matzah cover guarding the left edge. These objects of structure (of the eveningÕs Seder) and the container of the mitzvah of matzah are the bookends that contain the gentle, evocative, round mitzvos of the evening. The round matzah is echoed in the circular settings in the seder plate, while that motif is carried in the horizontal circles found in the ribbing of the wine decanter. This gentle symphony of circles rotating through space denote the repetitive nature of mitzvas done year in year out, for every generation. And anchoring our visual entrance into the painting in the lower right is the kittle, depicted as a type of fabric rectangle, the symbolic clothing of the leader who brings all these elements together on seder night. What a fitting tribute indeed to the artistÕs father.

Chava RothÕs paintings work on two levels. One is on the inside track, bringing her love of Yiddishkeit and family to fellow frum Jews. And her paintings also work on the outside track, using the universal language of intelligent, commanding and intriguing composition to move the viewer around her still life so as to begin to narrate a meaning that goes beyond sentiment and arrives at commentary. Her commentaries narrate using the symbolic objects that become more that the sum of their parts.

Chava Roth knows how to do this from a deep and rich background in the visual arts. She educated herself with honors in a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts and then a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Queens College. She first worked as an abstract artist where understanding composition is essential to creating good painting and then, as she expanded her creative vocabulary, she focused on portrait commissions and personalized bar mitzvah invitations. These invitations are actually still life compositions with tallis, tefillin bags and seasonal yom tov objects that are personalized. Here again, she composed religious symbols in such a way as to convey specific meaning. She is also a master puppeteer, both performing and creating the puppets and scenery. The ability to conceptualize, narrate and create in a three dimensional space Roth has easily carried over into her paintings. And last but not least, she has spent ten years teaching painting, drawing, water color and pastel to women at the Boro Park Y.

Armed with this impressive array of artistic and communicative skills Chava Roth has taken the everyday objects of a frum home and through insightful composition, transformed them into a symphony of meaning and insight for the whole world to see.

Richard McBee
January 13, 2001

Published with permission of the Jewish Press, Brooklyn, New York.