Art exhibition shines light on Jewish ritual and memory
Four contemporary Jewish artists are sharing Goldstone Gallery’s Collingwood space in a program that moves between ritual objects, light sculpture, cut-paper work and ceramics.
The exhibitions bring together Ilan El, Chaya Joffe, Ryan Abramowitz and Deborah Wargon, each working in a different medium but circling similar questions: how objects carry memory, how ritual lives in the home, and how material can hold feeling.
Deborah Wargon – Reflections on Time 1 2026 cut black paper
The program is being presented during Melbourne Design Week and continues at Goldstone Gallery until 14 June 2026.
Ilan El’s work sits at the meeting point of art, design and architecture. In his exhibition, light becomes more than illumination. It acts as a material in its own right, shifting the viewer’s sense of space and depth.
ILANELs ‘22 Halo’ from the exhibition Form and Phenomena 2026 (Photo: Ilan El)
His glass works use reflection, colour and internal refraction to create objects that change as the viewer moves around them. Among the works are pieces made from recycled glass, shaped through heat and time. They give the impression of something both solid and unstable, a reminder that light can alter the way even a fixed object is seen.
Chaya Joffe’s ceramic practice moves in a different direction, towards the table, the hand and the rituals of Jewish life.
Working as Chaya Ceramica, Joffe has created Kiddush cups, handwashing vessels, challah bowls, Seder plates and other ceremonial
pieces. The works are not presented as decorative objects alone. They are made for use, for gathering, and for the weekly and seasonal rhythms of Jewish homes.
Her ceramics draw on porcelain, raku and earthy clay bodies, with surfaces that include marbling, matte glazes and touches of gold lustre. The result is work that feels grounded and intimate, with each piece carrying signs of touch and variation.
Chaya Joffe – Kiddush cups and saucers, earthy clay with gold accents, 2026
Ryan Abramowitz’s “Thresholds: Earthen Echoes” also draws on Jewish ritual, but through the doorway rather than the table.
His exhibition centres on mezuzah covers and Chanukah menorahs, with forms inspired by stone, shells, leaves and coastal textures. The mezuzah, fixed to the doorposts of Jewish homes, becomes a point of reflection on protection, identity and passage.
Abramowitz’s use of clay gives the works a weathered quality, as if they have been shaped by time as much as by the artist’s hand. Several pieces carry gold markings, including the Hebrew letter shin. Some works that cracked during firing have been repaired with gold, turning damage into part of the finished object.
Deborah Wargon’s contribution takes the exhibition into the territory of ancestry, time and abstraction.
Her cut-paper works begin with a single sheet of black paper, transformed through line, space and shadow. The pieces range from smaller portrait-like works to large sculptural forms, using absence as much as presence. What has been cut away becomes as important as what remains.
Wargon, who has worked across music and visual art, brings a strong sense of rhythm to the works. They suggest movement, memory and the passage of time without spelling out a single narrative.
Ryan Abramowitz – Mezuzah covers
Together, the four exhibitions create a conversation about contemporary Jewish making. Some works belong clearly to ritual life. Others speak more quietly through light, line or surface. But all four artists show how Jewish identity can be explored through material, not only through text or image.
Goldstone Gallery’s program avoids treating tradition as something fixed. Instead, it shows ritual and memory as living forces, shaped and reshaped through the objects people make, hold, use and pass on.
The exhibitions are on show at Goldstone Gallery, 41 Derby Street, Collingwood, until 14 June 2026.
