Hagar Shur turns her pain into weird and wonderful art

The fear in a bomb shelter in Kfar Bialik is felt far across the ocean, in New York’s Chelsea art district.  In Ceres Gallery, an emotional month-long exhibition by my wife, the Israeli artist, and bomb shelteree, Hagar Shur, was inspired by those hard days and nights, when sirens drove us and all of northern Israel into bomb shelters many times a day. Hagar’s show includes digitally edited photographs of screams of pain that contrast with joyous embroideries, explosions of light and color, instead of explosions of bombs and rockets.  One side of the gallery is the wall of pain, the other is the wall of light and joy. A simple theme, easy to grasp, yet difficult to digest.

Artwork by Hagar Shur (courtesy)

Marilyn Altman from Connecticut said, ”Besides being a beautiful and impactful art exhibit, it was an uplifting experience of the human spirit and how art can capture those important moments in time.” She bought two works to donate to her synagogue in Stamford, Connecticut.

Artwork by Hagar Shur (courtesy)

Hagar’s art seems to have an echo: Of 12 works, she sold ten on the first day, and the rest in the first week. “I don’t want to profit from those days,” she says “I will donate all the money to a charity in Israel.”  The proceeds will go to the Jerusalem Hills Therapeutic Center, which cares for children suffering from abuse and abandonment.

Artwork by Hagar Shur (courtesy)

All the embroideries come from a place of fear and anger, Hagar said. But rather than agonizing over the
sirens and the daily television images, she thought, “let’s create something beautiful. Fight hate with love.” Hagar’s work is whimsical and undisciplined, swirls of color, surrealist images, floating faces and weird and wonderful birds that would not be out of place in a Chagall window pane.

So she drew her shapes on materials like canvas, old shirts, and paper, and together with Tamar, her mother, Macy, her mother’s carer, Dvora, her sister-in-law and Ortal, a friend, using cotton threads of all colors of the rainbow, they turned down the TV sound and their fingers flew for days and weeks on end. The res Hagar said, “are these lighthearted embroideries. As they tried to kill us, we responded with a celebration of life.”

One woman at the show took exception to that. “She’s afraid in her bomb shelter while they kill thousands and thousands of Palestinians. Disgusting. And I’m Jewish.”

A more common response came from Miel, also from Connecticut. With tears in her eyes, she said, “They’re so beautiful, such a subtle way to express pain.”