Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Graphic Details: The Artists, Part 2

There are 24 days until the opening of Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women at the Gladstone Hotel. This travelling exhibition has received some great press - the links are available in this post - so I’m getting excited for its arrival. In the meantime, I’ve been reading up on some of the women who are a part of it. Here’s what I’ve learned about the women in this second installment.

Sarah Lightman
Lightman was born in London, England and is one the curators for Graphic Details. In addition to being an artist and curator, she is also a researcher and journalist, currently completing a PhD on autobiography in comics. Lightman’s comics document her life experiences, often focusing on her relationships and interactions with others. She is also the director of a comics forum called Laydeez do Comics. You can listen to a recent interview of Lightman by Cartoon County on the Mindless Ones website.

Corinne Pearlman
Pearlman, who works out of the United Kingdom, has been a regular contributor to the Jewish Quarterly since 2002. Her comic strips, Playing the Jewish Card, explore her identity as an assimilated Jew. Pearlman is also a partner in Comic Compnay, an organization that produces and distributes health information, and the coordinator for Cartoon County, the Sussex Cartoon and Comic Strip Artists Association. Pearlman has also created a cartoon about this exhibition where she explores the idea that Jews find confession appealing.

Racheli Rottner
Rottner was born in Netanya, Israel in 1882. Rottner has published art in a number of magazines, taught classes, and has even published her first graphic novel, The Other Side of the World. Her graphic novel is autobiographical, and tells the story of her time spent in Australia. A synopsis is available from The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature.

Ilana Zeffren
Zeffren, who works out of Israel, is the creator of Sipur Varod - Pink Story, an autobiographical story of the historical struggles of gays and lesbians in Israel. Zeffren also publishes a weekly comic strip that features her girlfriend and two talking cats in an Israeli magazine “Rishoomon”. They’re in Hebrew, but you can view the comics in her flickr photostream.

Michael Kaminer
Michael Kaminer, co-curator of Graphic Details - who is not a Jewish woman - is not one of the featured artists but he does talk about how this exhibit came to be in this interview with Jewish Women’s Archives. Check it out!

Watch for more information about our contributors to Graphic Details in the weeks to come and don’t forget to check out Michael Kaminer's Graphic Details blog!

Casandra Campbell

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