Judy Rey Wasserman Secret Artist's Statement

I am founding a new art theory called UnGraven Image. It is Post Conceptual Art that combines the tenets of Conceptual symbolism, especially as used in Word Art with narrative imagery that may or may not have obvious reference to the symbol-strokes. I intend to grow this theory into a movement.

UnGraven Image Art theory asserts that the most essential physical element in any painting, and often in other forms of art (such as sculpture) is a stroke. Strokes are so basic and essential that they are to an artwork, what elementary physics's strings or membranes (the essential pre-particles) are to the physical universe.

Strokes express an artist's intent, but also a stroke itself can have meaning, including symbolic reference.

UnGraven Image uses the Hebrew letters from Bible texts for every single stroke. The letters symbolize the smallest pre-particles, called waves or membranes in cutting edge physics. Physicists theorize (and agree) that there are 11 of these membranes in our universe and 11 corresponding ones in alternate ones; thus, 22. There have always been 22 basic Hebrew letters.

The theology that God created the world by speaking Hebrew in Genesis I, and that those words (and their letters, vibratory sounds) are the basis for the physical universe is held by all the Judeo-Christian faiths. In addition to finding it in the Bible, including references to the letters as the essences of the physical universe in Psalm 119, the theology that the letters (again from God's words) are found in the Talmud, Kabbalah (both Christian and Jewish versions and other Jewish and Christian theological works. This theology is so basic that it is held by every branch or denomination of Christians and Jews

Furthermore in the Ten Commandments it says not to make an image of anything on earth or in the heavens. Ultra Orthodox Jews and also Muslims follow this dictate. Their art (think Moorish) is filled with intricate designs but no imagery. UnGraven Image is absolutely not a graven image because all that is actually painted or drawn are Hebrew letters.

I work to depict what we don't see - the underlying reality of the universe, which is both physical and scientific, yet has spiritual origins. The letters interweave, are glazed one over another, and tumble in jumble that adds up to an image. This references the tiny membranes, that link until they form into particles, then atoms, then energy and matter, etc.

My work is about the how . How we live, how we treat each other and the earth, as well as and how the painting is made. The subject of all of my work is the letters, vibrations, words of God, which for me are the smallest building blocks (membranes) of reality. It's about the strokes, more than what the image is that the strokes combine to simulate.

The texts used for each painting are carefully chosen and give added underlying meaning to each work. Each painting is essentially about it's strokes, the Hebrew letters representing the smallest pre-particles. Thus the strokes themselves are the real subject, not the imagery they collectively appear to form.

I encourage interested artists to contact and join me. I have been asked to teach this by several artists as it is a new way of painting and hope to begin at least one seminar next year. I also have spoken and will speak about my art both at exhibits of the paintings and prints and through fundraising events using the prints. I am working on an illustrated art/religious self-help trade book about how to change your life by changing the way you physically see the world.