“The fallout of October 7 continues and recording it through paintings helps me connect things. At first, I was trying to express my shock and grief. Then I responded to the reports of violence against women and to seeing the hostages’ posters being torn down. I wanted to create portraits of the hostages that could not be simply removed. And I made them realistic, if not hyper-realistic.
“I also talked to Eylon Levy, who served as the Israeli government spokesman from the start of the war on Hamas until March 2024. I drew him amid a flood of messages and images to convey the pressures of communicating clearly amid so much anger and misinformation. And I painted a Trojan Horse draped in a Palestinian flag against a London backdrop. This was a response to what I was seeing on anti-Israel demonstrations in the UK, to what is happening in your country politically. It is painting as cultural commentary.”
Eylon Levy[Missing Credit]
Noa Argamani[Missing Credit]
And some of Gilden’s work, which has been featured in The Washington Post, exhibited in Los Angeles and is currently on display at the Jewish Cultural Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is in response to awkward conservations with family and friends. “The sort of exchanges in which you can see them shifting awkwardly in their seats, having an exchange they don’t want to have. Well, these pieces are an invitation to have that difficult conversation [about Israel and global antisemitism] in their head.
Trojan Horse[Missing Credit]
Women of October[Missing Credit]
“And without revealing any names, I know that in at least one instance my approach has worked. Someone who is a professional advocate for what can be best described as “unity”, which I would also like to believe in, said my paintings have made him look at October 7 and its aftermath differently.”
October 7[Missing Credit]
Screenshot[Missing Credit]