14Y Gallery

New Exhibit: Identity Landscapes

Opens Thursday, October 9
By Danielle Baron Atkins

This exhibit traces the artist’s search for meaning after October 7th, weaving ancient Jewish stories with fragments of daily life into sacred yet fragile forms. From large-scale canvases infused with family objects to a series of clay heads reimagining the biblical image of Jacob, her work bridges the personal and the ancestral, revealing identity as both vulnerable and transcendent.

Baron Atkins is one of 14Y’s 2025 LABA NY ‘Change’ fellows. The LABA program uses classic Jewish texts in an innovative setting to inspire artists of all disciplines to engage in dialogue, study, and create new works. 14Y LABA NY fellows include a mix of visual artists, writers, dancers, musicians, and more. Their works are regularly featured in 14Y’s gallery and our theater in a series of exhibits, live events, and performances.

Artist Statement:

This body of work explores the search for transcendence in the face of the realities of a post October 7th world.

Since that fateful date, a search for answers and meaning has driven me to augment my exploration of what it means to be a modern Jewish and Israeli woman with the fundamental questions of humanity and morality to be found in the study of ancient Jewish texts.

My large-scale constructions on canvas are inspired by my experiences as a Jewish wife and mother raising three boys in a chaotic and often hostile modern world. My gaze looks both inward, at the ever-changing female body and its perceptions as an object of desire, stability and resentment, and outward, to a broader world increasingly dominated by consumerism, isolation and antisemitism. The biblical stories of Tamar, Ruth and Jacob are woven together with intimate and everyday objects. Israeli fruit boxes with the discarded belongings of my children are infused with thread, staples and paint. Physical objects and stories from the Torah are ignited in the female form, revealing a simultaneously sacred and threatened identity landscape.

My work in clay, Visions and Versions of Jacob, is a series of 18 (the numeric value of Chai (חי) is the Hebrew word for life) fired clay heads. The pieces reflect the evolution of my art making from an increasing dimensionality on canvas through the use of found objects to a fully three dimensional exploration in clay. Inspired by the Beit Midrash sessions with Ruby Namdar in our Laba NY fellowship, I examine the question of what it means to be a Jew after October 7th. Jacob’s head becomes a constantly reimagined vessel to explore Jewish mysticism, strength and fragility, and to pay homage to the ancient wisdom of my ancestors, the Jewish People. They are a push and pull between the ancient and the new. Each head creates a different visceral reaction in the viewer yet they are tied together through a reoccurring motif of ladders with 18 rungs.

My Laba NY fellowship has enabled me to use a new artistic medium to delve into the ancient wisdom of the Jewish texts. Through this exploration I have found wisdom, inspiration and new purpose in my artmaking.

I would like to thank 14Y’s LABA NY, Ruby Namdar, Chanan Ben Simon, and Clayworks in Brooklyn for their guidance and inspiration.

About the Gallery at 14Y:

Experience the intersection of art and community in the lobby of 14Y. The Gallery at 14Y is a free art gallery, featuring new exhibits from local artists every month.

Supporters of 14Y Arts + Ideas

The 14Y Arts + Ideas programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.