Two Dimensional — Laurence Myers Reese

What Would I Want?

Oil on canvas

5×7”

2024

Private collection

Vayikra

And He Called

22×30”

Gouache on cotton paper

2022

Chochmah

Oil on canvas, 12×12”, 2023

Digital Amulets

These digital drawings are amulets of protection, inspired by Kabbalah, 90s computer games, and concepts of meditation and space.

Copies of digital files and stickers are available in the shop.

2021-2022

Shemoth

Shemoth (Names)

Gouache on paper

2022

22×30”

Devarim

Gouache on Arches

22×30”

2022

Bereshit

Gouache on rag cotton paper

22×30”

2022

Bamidbar

Gouache on Arches

22×30”

2022

Scroll (Space is a Practiced Place)

Pastel, watercolor, graphite on watercolor paper, 5x33’, 2021

Teshuvah

Oil on Canvas

57” x 71”

2020

A beginning: nothing.

then, creation: to be.

The IF spoke: “Teshuvah” Return.

name echoes into nothingness

language became light,

voice into dark void.

SPOKE, land. Letters made waters to cover the earth

Scooped up dust, with fingers made of noise.

If breathed a vocal breath into earth, making earth beings.

Feminine and masculine, all genders, they created them.

A Plurality created creatives

Language built language builders

A people of god wrestlers

Intent on respecting that

Even a great creator rested from creation

How do we retell the stories of our birth that include us from the beginning?

Artist Yael Kanarek rewrote the entire Torah with all genders swapped. Torah Tah, her torah, not the typical Torato, his torah. This was inspired by her noticing that our annual plea to God in the High Holy days says “Adonai Elohim,” which is plural for lords of gods, gods of gods, or even loosely translated heavenly host. What does it mean to write the narrative from the beginning from a new perspective? In which daughters are more valued than sons? In which men care for children found in the river?

Drawing on kabbalistic imagery, I see my work as an act of magic in creation. Lines and triangles cross over and over again, creating fractals of Magein David (Star or Shield of David). As they cross, colors create optical illusions of space. The hands, Hamsa, contain eyes, Nazar. They search through space and time, looking, reaching towards the viewer, beyond the picture plane.

From the beginning, there was word. But before the physical universe was spoken into existence, says the Talmud, the concept of Teshuvah, or return was created by HaShem, or, The Name. What do we return to? In high holy day prayers we pray to return to our good nature.

We can’t return to something we weren’t ever included in. What creation stories can we reach for? My hands are moving forward through the universe, the unknown. This we think we know:

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Our energy was here from the beginning.

Lech Lecha

Lech-Lecha (Go forth unto yourself)

Spray paint and oil on canvas

50”x90”

2021

Yad V'ayin

Watercolor and acrylic on paper

8x5”

2020

Hu Yaseh Shalom Aleinu

Hu Ya’asheh Shalom Aleinu (Who Makes Peace on High)
Oil on panel
4x4”
2021

Hu Ya'aSeh Shalom Aleinu

Oil on panel, 4x4” 2021

ID: an oil painting of a pile of avocado and mango sitting on a yellow field with a pattern fabric hanging in the background. The fabric is multicolored and appears to be a ribbon skirt. The paint is very loosely applied and appears very abstract. The colors are predominantly greens and blues with some small areas of pinks and reds and yellows in the fruit and the patterned fabric.