Elijah Blumofe

Gallery Reflection/Review: Siona Benjamin’s “Lilith”
Siona Benjamin has become acknowledged and lauded among artistic circles for her portrayals of multiethnicity as identity, forged from her own experience as a Sephardi Jew living in religiously cacophonous India (where she was surrounded by Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, and Farsi Zoroastrian communities). Her worldly motifs and imagery are reflected in a predominantly feminist vein, and it has become her signature to develop pieces centered around stunningly azure viragos, reminiscent of Hindu goddesses, yet often exhibiting traits of one or more other cultures in vivid and engaging contrast. This piece in question, titled “Lilith” (written in Hebrew script in the foreground) is one of a series of works that utilizes this technique, as well as exemplifies her preoccupation with controversial female figures (Lilith being a favorite subject of hers, whom she represents often in her work).  In the painting, the Lilith figure is engulfed in flames, clad in striped prison clothes and a nun’s habit, and placidly sits cross-legged in a fertile garden, where she waters what appear, from a vertically cut side view, to be mythical mandrakes (if not actual fetuses).  The mandrake babes, rooted below the strikingly crimson earth, are the most obvious and drawing feature of the piece, and correspond fittingly with the midrash surrounding Lilith (begging the ominous question of what Lilith intends to do with these botanical infants), and certainly conjure a sense of the macabre, yet I find of particular interest the fire which surrounds Lilith—red at it’s core, it graduates to yellow and finally to green, evoking an almost none threatening multi-chromatic splendor, and giving Lilith an aura of fertility and grace. From this, we may gather that Benjamin intends to portray Lilith as a matronly, life-giving force (rather than simply a demonic harvester), and a strong female figure who has perhaps been improperly represented throughout history (this sentiment too is alluded to by her prison garb, a classic symbol of oppression). In short, “Lilith” is a riveting piece, and a refreshing homage to biblical literature, which invokes the cross-cultural universality of symbology, civil issues, and belief systems.