ARTIST STATEMENT
In the Tekhelet Series, I work material and meaning through layered patterns, color, and mirrored symbols. As an anti-zionist Jewish artist, I reflect on Tekhelet—a sacred blue used in ritual garments that evokes the divine. Yet today, it also carries the weight of a violent ethnostate, occupation, and apartheid—co-opted by the Zionist project and embedded in its visual language. These works emerge from personal grappling and resistance: How can the colors and symbols of Judaism—Tzitzit, the Hamsa, Tekhelet—and those of Palestine —the land, poppies, figs, scarabs, Keffiyeh netting, keys of return—be disentangled from Zionism, which has long been harmfully conflated with Judaism? This conflation has enabled dispossession in Palestine and distanced Jews from Tikkun Olam. For healing to begin, it must be undone. These paintings ask how sacred and cultural symbols might reorient toward one another—not through dominance, but through recognition, Jewish Zionist accountability, cultural resilience, and a commitment to justice and cocreation. I ask whether these symbols—and the ways they live and wrestle (Yisrael in Hebrew means to wrestle, struggle with G-d) in me as a Jewish artist—can be reclaimed from state violence and returned to the people who carry them: in grief, in resistance, in prayer. Tekhelet becomes a search for integrity, for an original love of community, for meaning that exists beyond and before borders. It becomes a call toward repair, a just life, and a sense of the divine—within and beyond community.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
It has taken a lifetime for me to turn and say “hello” to the artist I once set aside. Early fears about “making a living” drowned out my creative voice, but thankfully, creativity never left me. It sustained me through meaningful careers in education, mental health, and advocacy—fields that reflect my lifelong drive to connect, heal, and build community. Now, in what I lovingly call my third act, I marvel at the many ways my creative heart expands—through painting, photography, personal narrative, cooking, sewing, crafting, and gardening. My multifaceted identity is central to this work: I am a white, cishet anti-Zionist Jewish woman with Greek and Sephardic roots, born in Germany and raised in Chicago. I navigate heritage, place, and belonging as both material and inspiration. Nature, pattern, and connection are through lines in my life. One of my first jobs was mixing ink for a master printmaker—an experience so fulfilling it still haunts me as a road not taken. I often ask: is it enough to make beautiful art in times of grief, crisis, and complicity? Can beauty be of service? Can it reveal something useful? I’m learning to hold both/and—to honor my creative drive while also asking how art can be a vehicle for consciousness, repair, and meaningful dialogue. As an only child, educator, and social worker, I’ve always built connections through one-on-one conversations. My art, too, is a conversation—one I hope invites reflection, beauty, and awakening.
© Jena Doolas