Dov Lederberg grew up in the Philadelphia area and began his involvement in the arts at Haverford College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Fine Arts, concentrating on the experimental film and became an active film-maker within The New American Underground.One of his works, entitled "Eargogh", an interpretation of the life of Vincent Van Gogh starring Jack Smith and Marie Menken, was widely screened at the time.
In the late Sixties Dov studied in rabbinical seminaries in the States and Israel.
Between 1970 and 1994 he worked as an independent film director, mainly for Israel Television, making documentary and educational films.
Since 1983 Dov has been deeply involved in using new art mediums and techniques to express the subtle ideas of Jewish mystical teachings and meditation. He has created many original acrylic paintings inspired by the Hebrew letters in the scribal style, as well as fractal visions of Bible events, the texture of the rock surface at the Wailing Wall and the Dynamics of Marriage. His current work is involved with kabbalah mandallas, collages of found objects and visual dialogues. His paintings and video art are exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and Israel. Dov lives in Jerusalem with his wife, the artist, Yael Avi-Yonah.
Artist's Statement:
I am engaged in the converging vectors of art and science, but receive added inspiration from kabbalah teachings & meditation and try to create visual forms conducive to mystical experience and self-transformation.
Most of my work would seem to fall within the abstract illusionist genre. This is especially true of my Dialogue series, my major preoccupation for the last two years, based on two cartoon faces in confrontation and inspired by my studies of the teachings of the noted philosopher, Martin Buber (the famous I-Thou / I-It paradigm) and its application in modern Gestalt psychology. The I-Thou Dialogues show two faces in harmony and balance, while in the I-It paintings (which I call Anti-logues), the second face is diminished or non-existent. Birthing can be considered the primal example of the I – THOU dialogue paradigm. |
