"Heroes & Legends" Opens Tuesday, November 14, in San Diego

 

Golems Appearing Around the Country!

 

Glad to share the news that my Paper Golems are doing a bit of traveling, after their big reveal in Los Angeles earlier this year. You can now buy the Paper Golems poster on my shop site, featuring 20 of my favorites – but yes, you can also see them LIVE and in person at two locations, in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Michigan friends can see them on exhibition at the Goodman Museum at Temple Israel, where DOZENS AND DOZENS of golems have taken over the gallery space! About a year ago I participated in their "Museum Moments" video series, and now — finally! — we've got an in-person show.

The Goodman Family Judaic & Archival Museum is thrilled to feature comic book, papercut artist Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik’s latest collection: Paper Golems. Inspired by the uncertainty of the pandemic, Brynjegard-Bialik connects popular culture with sacred texts and traditions to create golems that tell stories of power and protection. The golems allow us the opportunity to consider what is necessary to assume responsibility for one's protection and the community's protection, using whatever resources are available- be it mud or paper- and to consider what role we play in our own salvation or destruction.

 

Pennsylvania folks? You can see some of the series as part of "Roots & Blossoms: An Exhibit of Eastern European Papercut Art," now showing at the Guild of American Papercutters National Museum in Somerset, PA. Open through July 15, 2023; Monday through Thursday from 11 to 6, and Saturday from 10 to 2. Free and open to the public.

Come see this special exhibit at the Guild of American Papercutters National Museum featuring artists working in traditional and new Eastern European papercutting traditions of many kinds. Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, and more are represented. This exhibit consists of art that is in the style of or influenced by papercutting traditions from the European countries of Poland and further east. From the colorful, stylized Wycinanki to cuts born from the Jewish Diaspora, Roots and Blossoms displays traditional, modern, and even fusion works of art from members of the Guild of American Papercutters. Come find out about the images and techniques of eastern European paper artists.

Paper Golems Are Coming to Los Angeles in January 2022!

 

The golem story is one of power and protection. When the pandemic began and the world seemed to unravel in so many different ways, I wanted to regain a sense of control over my life, and so I started making golems. And now, for the first time ever, you can see all 72 of my paper golems in a new exhibition at the Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at UCLA Hillel.

If you've been keeping up with me through the pandemic, you know how personal this series is. Every golem is a response to what I saw happening in the world, day after day and week after week. The series is, at its heart, a pandemic diary.

“Paper Golems: A Pandemic Diary” is on display at the Dortort Center for the Arts Gallery at UCLA Hillel from January 27 through March 11, 2022. The free opening night reception is Tuesday, March 1, from 7-9 pm — with exclusive posters for sale, freebies like stickers and buttons, and some big surprises!

In Conversation with Art and Scroll Studio

Looking forward to talking with Shelley Werner of Art and Scroll Studio about my work, its origins, my golem series, and the new stuff I have planned for the coming months.

 

 

Register for FREE tickets: https://bit.ly/IsaacBrynjegard-Bialik

Paper Golems in Jerusalem

Join me for a very special exhibition premiering DOZENS of my Paper Golems – THIS MONTH IN JERUSALEM! I’ll be exhibiting prints of some of my favorite golems in the MASSIVE series I have been creating since the pandemic hit in 2020, and talking about WHY GOLEMS and WHY NOW and WHY COMICS.

Jewish writers and artists have explored the golem narrative for centuries: using Jewish magic to bring clay figures to life, to do everything from performing household chores to protecting communities from existential danger. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I began to create golems in my home studio: pieced together from cut-up comic books, featuring brilliant colors and surprising juxtapositions. These golems are inspired by personal stories of universal interest, imbued with the attributes of classic super heroes in a decidedly contemporary context.
 
Exhibit opening and meet-and-greet on Saturday night, June 26, at 9 pm (after Shabbat) at Kol Haot in Jerusalem: Studio 9 in Hutsot Hayotser Artists’ Colony, across from Jaffa Gate.

Cutting up in New Jersey

 What a lovely story in The Jewish Standard about the work that Rabbi Shawna and I are doing as Paper Midrash – and in particular the work we're doing with Temple Emeth in New Jersey.

 

Gotham Golem

For some reason, though Batman is one of my favorite comic book characters, he doesn't wind up in many of my papercuts. That changes with this piece from my golem series. With a working title of "Gotham Golem," it measures 24" x 36" and it's made of cut-up Batman comics, focused in particular on Gotham City.

 

For me, the golem story is about protection and power. It's about making your own protector from whatever you have at hand, and hoping it doesn't grow beyond your control.

 The golem story is tied very closely to a sense of place – it's important where the material from which the golem is made comes from. As Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel took mud from the Vltava River in Prague to make his golem (spoiler alert: not a true story), the comics in my golem come from my childhood collection, and this golem is made of the city it is protecting.

 I can't wait to put this – and all of its companions – into an exhibition for you to see in person.