Artist Anna Gil to unveil ‘Letters of Light’
By ALAN SMASON
Anna Gil is an extraordinary artist whose works on canvas can absolutely be called divinely inspired and mystical. A striking brunette with piercing eyes and a Mona Lisa smile that beguiles her talent with a paintbrush, she is both at home in front of a canvas and in her newfound home of New Orleans. Perhaps, not surprisingly, this native of San Diego first heard the call of the Crescent City through its music. “I’ve always loved this city,” she admits. “My first introduction was Jazz Fest 15 years ago.”
Anna Gil's work which inspired the title of her November 4 show at Gallery Orange, "Letters of Light."
Through his sound engineer, she was introduced to Mac Rabbenack, better known to the locals as Dr. John. Although she had not been committed to art until a few years ago and never began to paint the Hebrew letters and words that define her work until this past year, he has encouraged her growth as an artist, she says. “He’s a good friend of mine and a big supporter of my work,” she boasts. “He always said ‘Ann, you’re the real deal.'”
A show of 36 of her special works,”Letters of Light,” all inspired by Jewish mysticism, will be unveiled on Sunday evening, November 4, at Gallery Orange, 819 Royal Street, from 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Her approach to painting is largely spiritual and that fervent feeling of devotion is evident in her work. She works only in oils on her canvases for a variety of reasons. “Because all the old masters chose it,” she begins. “I love the richness of the colors. I love the movement onto the canvas and I love the way it smells. There’s an earthy smell to it; it’s not a chemical smell – it’s more natural.”
In a religious sense oil represents many different things to Gil. “There was oil in the Temple. We use oil to create light and for spiritual purposes,” she relates. “In the sanctuary that’s used to create an atmosphere and a home for the Divine.”
It is through the intercession of light that Gil believes life is elevated through every chance encounter. “Every conversation we have, we have a chance to make it better. That process creates an energy and that energy creates light,” she explains.
Gil’s unique oil paintings began with a chance encounter at a woman’s seminar at Chabad Jewish Center of Laguna Niguel four years ago. Neria Cohen facilitated a course called “Creative Soul Journeys” which Gil attended. In it participants were guided into meditations prior to their using watercolors to paint on canvases whatever came into their minds. “I went to that event and it unleashed something for me,” she recalls. “I really followed the guided meditation and expressed Hebrew letters. That completely opened up a vast world of learning, meaning, insight and knowledge and I began to paint that.”
Jewish mysticism painter Anna Gil.
Her works not only include examinations of Hebrew letters, but entire Hebrew words as well. She plumbs the depths of their meaning by delving deeply into religious texts before embarking on a new canvas. She begins the process by considering a visual prayer as she places herself into a prayerful state. “I read some of the Psalms, maybe some of the Tanach, but I put myself in a place that I know,” she recounts.
She begins a process of eliminating the obvious answers and letting everything go of all things known and familiar. “When I’m letting go, when I’m able to let that go, that’s the flash of insight,” she says. “It takes a long time for that to happen. It’s a process and in that process I create beauty because beauty comes from color. One color allows another to be.”
More than one person has noticed the similarity in Gil’s paintings to the renderings of famous painter Marc Chagall. Gallery Orange owner Tracy Gielbert was struck by it “There is a stained glass window aspect to her work,” she avers. “Her layers are very transparent, they are built of very thin layers of oil and it’s reminiscent of stained glass.”
Gielbert feels honored to be a part of Gil’s first showing, but wasn’t at first looking to have a show for a new, unproven artist. “Anna is a ray of sunshine and she’s very modest. I (first) saw her work on her (cell) phone and then, of course, she let me see her work (in person),” Gielbert recalls. “I think they exude something I’ve never seen before like some kind of magic power.”
The mystical nature of the paintings she asked to see were intriguing, but it was Gil herself who closed that deal. “I obviously liked her enthusiasm,” she recalls. “I’m always trying to help young artists, but somehow I was the chosen one for her.”
Gallery Orange owner Tracey Gielbert admires Anna Gil's painting "Letters of Light." (Photo by Alan Smason)
Gil sees the beginning of her artistic visions as starting on a blank canvas of black or white. While she clears her mind and enters a meditative state, she sees only the background. “I’m making a connection to God when I paint,” she reflects. “That’s what keeps me humble.”
This connection to the Divine inspires her to paint as an instrument of His will. “He is the great Creator and we are capable of infinity,” she muses. “We never use up everything – our souls and talents are endless.”
She regards life as movement with everything moving, expanding and radiating. So when she approaches the germ of a new work, she intentionally slows things down in her mind. ” It becomes a a natural flow of and back and forth,” she relates. “That meditative part is what reaches within my psyche and that’s the part that’s not quick.”
But when that flash of inspiration is found, she begins to apply oil to the canvas. “When all the circumstances are right, then the forms appear on the canvas and then they go into my mind. It’s a backwards process when I achieve the insight process as opposed to the deliberate.”
That may well be the difference between the way Gil receives her inspiration and how other artists approach art. There is no intent for her to paint a specific letter or word. The image is formed on the canvas before it takes full shape and is realized in her mind. “I paint as I learn,” Gil says. In just a few words she has distilled what might be the essence of Jewish mysticism in art. This is what impressed Gielbert, who describes Gil’s abstract works as “symbolic, sacred and meditative.”
"Ahava" ("Love") by Anna Gil.
It may literally take a leap of faith to understand the process. Nevertheless, the results are striking and extraordinary as various geometric shapes take form on the canvas defined and circumscribed by the Hebrew letters. The patterns appear to take on a three-dimensional aspect and vary in size and color in kaleidoscopic fashion. When the letters are joined into a Hebrew word, the results can be even more powerful with unanticipated meaning being defined by her imagery.
Take, for instance, her painting titled “Ahava,” the Hebrew word for love. It is not about physical love or romance as one might suspect. It is, in fact, a painting derived from her study of Bereshit (Genesis) and her appreciation of “learning the ahava in what love is and that is the love Hashem has for us.” She employs the use of various colors of blue throughout the painting because of the concept of the spirit of God hovering over the waters, the blue representing the colors of the sea. “His capacity to love us. It’s vast. That’s what I would think of , but not just think so, I would actually feel his love for all of us even while I was painting that,” she explains.
She was moved so much by this precious love that she decided she needed to work with gold leaf to express the love of the Almighty. It becomes representative of the light of His love and one can almost feel the magnitude of the phrase “And God said ‘Let there be light. And there was light.'”
She feels the connection to the cosmos and even considers the angels depicted as points of light. “It’s all connected,” she considers. “The angels, the light, the love of God, Creation, His love for us. It’s all connected.”
Gil reflects on both the colors and shapes that define her work. “The interlocking shapes show the deep space which we all have deep within us and the Hebrew letters stay on the surface, but only on the canvas,” she continues. It is her belief that once the mystical nature of the paintings is revealed in all its meaning, it will spring into one’s consciousness and a level of understanding of what she felt at the time of her painting will be achieved.
"Shalom" with its multiple meanings of "hello, goodbye and peace" by artist Anna Gil.
Another of her works is “Shalom,” the Hebrew word with multiple meanings for hello, goodbye and peace. She defends her use of bold and strong colors in the painting, suggesting that peace is not always wrapped in a blanket of tranquility. “Peace comes strongly and boldly,” she suggests. In a way “Shalom” is a tribute to New Orleans, the place she now calls home. “The colors of the city have inspired me,” she admits. She describes her use of multiple colors in “Shalom” as having a desired effect like that of confetti.
“Music and art have been a central part to my life,” the artist states. “The letters have inspired my heart. I want to touch people through my art and especially with each encounter,” she says.
Perhaps because Gil’s art is derived from religious text, there is an impression that her works are not imbued with pride or conceit and this also struck Gielbert. “Beauty and creativity are the result of humility because if you’re vain, that’s not real beauty,” Gil professes. “If you create something out of vanity it’s not creative.”
Gil is, of course, familiar with the mystical nature of the number 36, or “double chai,” the numerical equivalents of the Hebrew letters hay and yud adding up to the number 18. Twice that is the number of paintings that comprise her show. She smiles when she considers that perhaps that was Providence as well. “It wasn’t on purpose, ” she explains. “Yesterday I said I had better take inventory, so I counted them and, lo and behold, I have 36!” She was amazed at the number, but wanted to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. “I counted it again,” she says. The result was the same.
Gil looks forward to greeting art lovers and making more of those connections she talks about so glowingly. She will be providing handouts for those who attend to explain more deeply the meaning of what she experienced at the time of her execution of the works. “By teaching what I’m painting, there’s going to be someone who will embrace it,” she purports.
Even though this is her first solo show, Gil says she is not nervous. “I’m more anxious than nervous,” she explains. “I’m not a nervous person to begin with, but I’m very excited. I feel like dancing!”
Sometime in late winter or early spring, Gil may be dancing again. She recently received news that her work would be on display at another gallery in Houma then, but details have not yet been finalized.
Kosher food provided by Whole Food Company and wines (some kosher) will accompany the Sunday evening opening at Gallery Orange. Harpist Jacques Weaver will play a number of Jewish melodies throughout the affair. For more information call Gallery Orange at 504-875-4006 or check out their website.
