Exhibitions celebrating Jewish creativity

Goldstone Gallery is marking Melbourne Design Week with a rich program of exhibitions by Jewish artists working across ceramics, light art, paper sculpture and Judaica.

Chaya Joffe, working under the studio name Chaya Ceramica, presents a collection of hand-formed ceramic vessels and objects centred around the rhythms of Shabbat and Jewish festivals.

Installed as a table-based setting, the exhibition brings together functional objects including Kiddush cups, challah bowls and Seder plates.

Each piece is designed to be used, held and returned to repeatedly, creating a lived experience rather than a static display.

“My work is rooted in ritual,” Joffe said. “These are forms that are touched, passed, filled, emptied, and returned to again and again. Each piece sits between intention and unpredictability. It is made to function, but also to carry presence – something quiet, imperfect and alive.”

Sharing the program is Ryan Abramowitz, whose exhibition presents hand-formed ceramic mezuzot and chanukiot. Each piece carries impressions that echo weathered stone, eroded limestone, shells and fragments shaped by wind and water over time, with a shimmer of gold tracing the Hebrew letter shin across all works.

“Together, the works move between desert and ocean, breakage and repair, erosion and growth,” Ryan said of his work. “They reflect a deep attention to patterns in nature; the way surfaces are shaped over time, the way matter carries memory and the way beauty emerges through both pressure and patience.”

Melbourne-based light artist ILANEL, Ilan El, is exhibiting two wall-mounted installations, 22° Halo I & II, alongside Aether, a work inspired by abstract expressionism.

Also debuting is Stiria, a limited edition of 10 forged glass sculptures named for the Latin word for icicle, capturing what El describes as a permanent state of transition.

Rounding out the program is Deborah Wargon, whose works are all cut from single pieces of black paper and range in size. Works from Wargon’s 2022 series The Busts are renamed Portraits, and are shown alongside three larger new works, continuing her exploration of themes including time, movement and interior and exterior space.

“The line has always been my starting point, whether drawn on paper with a pencil, pen, ink or following a melodic line of thought in musical improvisations and compositions,” Wargon wrote of her practice.

“Fundamentally, I am following a line of thought to see where it goes.”

The Four Solo Concurrent Exhibitions will run from May 14 to June 14. For more information, visit goldstonegallery.com.