Broken Light

Broken Light explores the twenty-two Hebrew letters in palindromic arrays. In these arrangements, the letters both become something else and, at the same time, their forms are made more visible.

The work is influenced by Jewish mysticism, which traditionally considered the shapes of Hebrew letters to be meaningful: elemental symbols or glyphic parables inherently connected to creation and the universe. As Edward Hoffman writes in The Hebrew Alphabet: A Mystical Journey, “The 13th-century Zohar (Book of Splendor) is filled with references to the importance of the Hebrew alphabet as a celestial code or blueprint for the cosmos… Just as we now regard the DNA molecule as a carrier of incredibly condensed information concerning the development of life, so too have kabbalists viewed the Hebrew language…as a cipher describing the universe.” The letters are vessels made of the light of life itself, and recall the divine vessels which were broken at the time of creation.

Broken Light originates from the notion that the alphabet (or in this case, the alefbet) is a telescope. Not only do we look into it, but, like the great bowl of a radio telescope, we wait to receive the hiss of light, the fossil glow of consciousness, language and culture.

At the opening of the Broken Light exhibition, I explained more about the Hebrew alphabet, the beautify and duplicity of language, how looking carefully at letters is a way of making and unmaking the world. Here’s what I said, minus a few ums and ahs.

Each high quality digital print is 20″ x 20″ printed on Hahnemühle Bamboo Fine art paper by Smokestack Studios. Signed.
Price: $135 (postage not included.) Please email for details
High quality digital print 13″ x 13″ printed on Canon Fine Art Premium Matte paper framed. Signed.
Price: $100 (postage not included.)

There’s also a chapbook of black, white, and red versions of these images published by Penteract Press (UK)