But for Auschwitz, I would not be alive. My parents met there working in a munitions factory. My mother was deported from Hungary and sent to Auschwitz when the Germans invaded. As a young girl, she fled Czechoslovakia with hopes and dreams when it was invaded. Her sister fled to Budapest as well. My father, who had maintained a firm belief in God and was strictly adherent to his faith’s religious rituals, was eventually picked up by the French police for smuggling papers for the Jewish Underground. He was sent to Drancy, from which he was put on a train to Auschwitz.  My mother’s parents were captured in their home hiding in a closet. My mother was removed from her position as an au pair when the Germans took over Budapest; her younger sister, hiding in a convent in Budapest, was turned over to the Germans by the mother superior.

My work reflects the confluence of their history—psychological, social, and philosophical and its reverberations. It also seeks to capture the cynicism of their and my perspective of life, the struggle to keep in check the horrors of their experiences, how to carry the burden of survival, find a positive view of humanity, love, beauty and elegance in a world where a living hell can suddenly permeate one’s very existence.

While my parents responded only to direct questions about the Holocaust rather than voluntarily sharing their past with their children, the experience so permeated their values, their approach to life, their belief system and integrity, that every ounce of their soul and character communicated the gruesomeness and depth of its life changing effect.   When people didn’t agree with my father, including myself, he would respond: “I had better friends in Auschwitz.” When things got difficult in business, even when it was clearly his own fault, my father’s standard response was “What can they do to me that I haven’t experienced before?

After Auschwitz, both of my parents dismissed their orthodox faith. The betrayal of his own countrymen and the treatment and deprivation my father suffered at Auschwitz had a profound effect upon his ideals and religious beliefs. Integrity was not the hallmark of his character; he had survived by luck, charm and, occasionally, wit.  The values he learned at Auschwitz where he could not expect a tomorrow, didn’t know if there was going to be enough food the next day, whether or not he would freeze to death, or if he would even survive until the next day impacted all of his social and business relationships. For my mother, she came to deal with reality by “playing the ostrich.” She avoided dealing with any harsh realities. She did not want to know about them. She was going to be a queen. Late in her life, she finally dealt directly with the Holocaust when she sculptured a monument for its commemoration. Auschwitz gave my parents different lenses through which to perceive the world.  Its deep imprints were what I had to learn to understand, deal with, find personal resolution and come to terms with.

As a child immigrant not speaking English and foreign to American culture (except for a fascination with American cowboys and Indians) I bring to my work the personal existential experience of the “other.” Years as a trial attorney handling acrimonious custody and divorce cases further colors my take on the human condition and is reflected in my work.

Artistic Response

My artistic response to my parents’ experience and my own is to repeatedly challenge the viewer as well as myself. In a sense, I reverberate their scarred echoes. I abhor and refuse passivity.   Whether the image is harsh or pleasant or even a combination of the two, there is a need for dialogue if not confrontation.  I seek to deny the viewer to quietly pass by my images.  I want people to confront the human condition, to ask what it means to be a human being, to be humane.  At the same time, for sheer personal survival, I seek to find beauty and serenity in life’s existence. For this reason, music is often an under painting in my work; it provides me with the ability to roam between the forces of light and darkness.

The dynamism, the bold strokes, the vivid colors even stark black and white paintings all reflect my perspective of life as complex, intense, raw.  Seeds of doubt remain are left even where there is beauty in the work.

Recent and Upcoming Exhibitions

– LAArtCore, L.A.,2015

– SPECTRA : The works of Laddie John Dill and Alain Rogier, Oct. 2014, The Loft at Liz’s

– Solo Show, TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, “Conflict in Search of Serenity,” 2014

– 3 Person Show, TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station. Solo theme:  “Conflict: Pregnant or Otherwise”, 2013

– 3 Person show at UCLA Hillel Dortit Center. Solo theme: “Graffiti of the Mind and Other Dreamscapes.”  2013

– 2 Person Show, Hale Arts, Main St., Santa Monica, 2013

– LA Art Association, Gallery 825,  “LAAA’s Signature Survey of the Very Best Emerging Contemporary Art ” 2012, Rebecca Morse, Associate Curator for MOCA, juror.

– Juried to be a member of the Jewish Artist Initiative, 2013

– Selected for auction by the Venice Family Clinic Art Walk Auction, 2013

Art education:  Otis College of Art and Design.

Additional education:

B.A., Political and Social Theory, U.C. Berkley;

J.D., Loyola Law School, Los Angeles.

Hebrew Union College Rabbinical School (attended one year before dropping out.)