They left, I came back
Mixed media collage and acrylic paint on canvas
36×48 inches
2021

Working with her family’s Jewish diasporic history, Hannah Rothbard also investigates the relationship between place and identity. Working with collage, she examines the phenomena of preserving one’s culture through ritual, shared experience, and objects. By cutting, pasting, and reassembling her work They Left, I Came Back, she speaks to the process of retracing one’s history through layers of fragmented memory. In this image, memory is trapped between the collaged bricks, like mortar, of a classic New York City building that holds rich familial history for Rothbard.

Hannah Rothbard’s work appears in Retro/Intro.