The artwork of Suzanne Neusner and Naomi Safran-Hon are on exhibit at Beth El-Keser Israel (BEKI) now through June 4.

Artists Suzanne Neusner’s Fiber Arts in the upstairs gallery space and Naomi Safran-Hon’s Going Home downstairs.

Neusner, whose exhibit Fiber Arts will be on display, has focused on abstract imagery through a variety of weaving and quilting techniques throughout her 35-year career. Her work includes references to landscapes, abstractions, and playful reinventions of traditional Jewish themes. For inspiration, the Rhinebeck, New York, resident draws from her natural surroundings in the Hudson Valley. 

Many of her creations have appeared as covers for books published by renowned publishers.

The paintings in Safran-Hon’s exhibition, Going Home, depict neglected rooms, halls, and passageways with traces of their former inhabitants and the external forces that brought about their desolation. Through these paintings, the artist reflects on a complicated relationship with her homeland, Israel. 

In these pieces, Safran-Hon, who was born in Oxford, England and raised in Haifa, combines photographs of abandoned homes in Wadi Salib, a neighborhood in her hometown of Haifa, with cement, fabric, lace, and acrylic paint. These structures, which were the homes of Palestinians until the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and the creation of the State of Israel, stand as ghosts of the past in a neighborhood that has never recovered. Through the process of making her work, Safran-Hon reconstructs these buildings and asks the viewer to reconsider our ideas of home and belonging. 

Safran-Hon's work has appeared in solo exhibitions at Slag Gallery, New York, RX Gallery, Paris, Brandt Gallery, Amsterdam, and Marfa Contemporary, Marfa, Texas