Draw Yomi: Art and Text in Contemporary Jewish Life

 

 

In January 2020 Jacqueline completed her seven and half year drawing project, Draw Yomi, to learn a page of Talmud a day following the Daf Yomi cycle, and respond each day with a drawing.. What does an artist notice that a yeshiva student might not see? When the hands are busy, the mind is thinking differently and the art making process offers new ways to subvert and create meaning. Using a wide variety of drawing mediums, Jacqueline used her art to engage with the traditional Talmud in untraditional ways, and develop fresh insights into this ancient text. On display at Lehigh University are some digital films and a specially selection of Jacqueline’s notebooks, curated from the 2,711 drawings in the Draw Yomi collection.

Jacqueline Nicholls is a London based visual artist, award-winning visual poet, Jewish educator.and cultural events producer. Jacqueline’s art practice explores handwriting as a form of drawing. This interest is informed by her Jewish heritage, a tradition that values scholarly word-play and textual interpretations as religious acts. Handwriting is her method of grappling with the patriarchal authoritative texts of the tradition, taking them in hand as a feminist critique. Her work shifts between representational to abstraction as she considers the emotional potency of ambiguity.

 

Jacqueline initially trained as an architect, and then went on to study medical illustration - learning anatomy and precise observational drawing along the way. But she got distracted by fine art, and its potential to develop and express ideas through making. She uses a variety of craft based techniques in her work including embroidery, paper-cutting, dressmaking, book-binding, as well as drawing, printmaking, painting, and animation. These process are meticulous in detail. The creative tension between my feminism and my ethnic, religious identity has been a key component of her practice.

 

Jacqueline’s art has been exhibited in solo shows and significant contemporary Jewish Art group shows in the UK, USA, Europe and Israel. Her work is held in public and private collections. Artist residency include Beit Venezia in Venice, Italy, and Manchester University Jewish Studies Department’s project ’50 Jewish Objects’.  Jacqueline has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martin, University of London. 

 

Jacqueline also co-ordinates Arts & Culture events at JW3 London, and regularly teaches at the London School of Jewish Studies.