arts & culture
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
P hiladelphia may not have seen
its first snow of the season, but
December brings with it winter
in earnest, including the shortest
days of the year.

While a 4:30 p.m. sunset might
mean an earlier Shabbat, it also
brings the onset of seasonal
affective disorder and the win-
ter doldrums. To relieve the cold
weather scaries, artists and galler-
ies around the city are putting on
exhibits that bring levity and light
to their spaces and audiences.

The Jewish Exponent rounded
up a few options for gallery view-
ings and events to add a little
brightness to your day or weekend:
Old City Jewish Art Center’s
“Light” ture the works of Elkins Park artist
Ursula Sternberg, who immigrated
to Philadelphia after fleeing Nazi
Germany. While much of the exhibit will
feature Sternberg’s figure drawing
and textile work, Sternberg perhaps
made her biggest impact in the
Philadelphia art community off the
canvas as one of InLiquid’s first
members and creator of a mak-
er’s space in the 1990s. She hosted
drawing classes for the community.

While the exhibit doesn’t
directly address the themes of lev-
ity and light like OCJAC does,
Sternberg’s approach to her art
represented, in part, escapism and
One of Ursula Sternberg’s pieces on display as part
expansiveness that some audience
of InLiquid’s “Ursula Sternberg: Daydream”
members may look for in dark
times. Congregation Beth Or’s Olitsky
Much of Sternberg’s art appeared in
The Old City Jewish Art Center kicked
off its December exhibit with the theme
of “Light” on Dec. 2, but the exhibit
will continue for the rest of the month.

The exhibit will feature several art-
ists who previously contributed to
OCJAC and will explore “the compo-
nents of light in practical terms and
spiritual meaning, connecting it with
Chanukah,” OCJAC Executive Director
Rabbi Zalman Wircberg said.

As with OCJAC’s other themes,
“Light” will draw on Jewish themes
to promote a universal message, inter-
preted across different mediums and
from Jewish and non-Jewish artists.

Artist Bonita Wagner will feature her
piece “Dahlia II,” a large charcoal drawing
that stretches about 5 feet. In the center, a
black and white dahlia flower blooms.

“All of the subjects that I work with,
when I draw them, I focus on how light
interacts with them, with bouncing
off of the surfaces of the flowers, with
how those flowers absorb the light and
reflect it back,” Wagner said.

Charcoal lends itself well to the
theme of “Light,” as Wagner uses the
medium to carve out delicate petals
and leaves that appear almost translu-
cent between thick and weighty char-
coal shapes.

Gallery On Dec. 9 at 8:45 p.m. following Kabbalat
Shabbat services, Congregation Beth
Or in Maple Glen will host an open-
ing reception for its newest exhibit at
its Olitsky Gallery featuring the art of
Elissa Goldberg.

Goldberg will display about 30 pastel
landscapes, many of which are scenes
from the beach.

“Her landscapes seem to be just
so evocative, just so dreamy and just
someplace you would love to be,” gal-
lery curator Karen Liebman said.

Similar to the charcoal of Wagner’s
works, pastel also creates brightness and
contrast that are effective at conveying
light and reflection with what Goldberg
calls “the immediacy of color.”
A lawyer by trade, Goldberg uses art
as an escape and can see her audience
doing the same.

“It’s just freeing because these large
swaths of color that you can just create
the scene as opposed to a lot of fine
detail. ... It’s more liberating,” she said.

“Ursula Sternberg: Daydream”
at InLiquid
InLiquid’s gallery in the Olde
Kensington neighborhood
of Philadelphia frequently exhibits local
Jewish artists, and their exhibit open-
ing on Dec. 10 will posthumously fea-
her home, with nearly every exterior
covered in her creations.

“We’ve seen photos of her house in
Chestnut Hill; it’s like literally every
surface of her home, she made it her
own,” InLiquid Program Director
Clare Finin said. “And I think she was
building a world for herself — a beauti-
ful world for herself and one where she
was safe.”
Finin suggested that Sternberg’s
escapist approach to her art and home
was a byproduct of the instability and
danger that pervaded her life. This
balance can be seen in the InLiquid
exhibit. “A lot of her works kind of undulate
between there being a kind of poetic
sadness, but also a humorous beauty,”
Finin said. JE
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Courtesy of InLiquid
Art Galleries Focus on Levity,
Light for December Exhibits