May 30, 2013 – The Jewish Week

At a close look, what appears to be a tear on the cheek of one of Sara Erenthal’s painted portraits is actually a hole in the wooden board the piece is painted on. The painting is one in a series called ‘œOut of the Drawer’ ‘” the boards were pulled from a drawer she found on the street.

The brightly colored painting is a representation of a girl with two tight braids. This, like much of Erenthal’s work is autobiographical, recalling a childhood in which she always wore her hair that way. Her father usually braided it, insisting that she wear them until she was 10 when she began wearing one braid down her back instead, as in a companion painting. As her story unfolds in a recent interview, the tear seems as though it was meant to be there.

Erenthal’s family was Neturei Karta, ardent ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists. At age 17, she ran away, rather than face an arranged marriage. She never returned. She’s now a 32-year-old artist in New York City and is zealous about making art.

Read the full article here.