www.gilah.com
IG @gilahyelinhirsch

In addition to being a painter and writer, my films deal with my theory on the origin of alphabet, Cosmography, based in 5 patterns found in nature. I identified and photographed these patterns while living for as much as 16 months alone in wilderness. World travels facilitating investigation of alphabets ancient to modern confirmed my hypothesis that the 5 patterns were chosen universally by our ancestors because they mirror the neurons and neural processes of perception and cognition. The hard-wired commonality further binds humanity closer than we can imagine. This understanding also raises the question of do we think because of what we see or do we see because of what we think?

Description:
While cultures and languages bring unique beauty and richness to the world, we, as humankind, are more alike than we are different. Combining science and art, Reading The Landscape is a magical voyage around the world following the migratory patterns of humankind. We follow five forms identified in nature that are present in alphabets universally, ancient to modern, and show that these forms were chosen ubiquitously as they mirror neurons and neural processes of perception and cognition. This is her second film based on her theory of Cosmography. Watch Reading the Landscape on Vimeo. The DVDs are for sale on Amazon.

Artist Statement
My paintings are about the ineffable, the ascent toward numinous where light reigns. I embark on the mysterious voyage toward revelation with a thought, memory, word, embodied in a charged swirl of a multicolored brush.The discovery process continues with layer upon layer of call and response to the developing image as more associations, thoughts, memories, or patterns are triggered. Elevating, ritualistic non-specific forms emerge. Fascinated, I am driven by emerging clues toward finding the elusive entirety. I am hooked into an experiential dig, an archeology of elemental form analogous to the careful search for images scratched and painted into caves preserved beneath layers of time and history, slowly illuminated for the first time. I am ultimately persuaded that an original life has been conjured when the new form breathes on its own and ceases to ask for attention – when light and shadow have achieved a unique reality that is welcoming, resonant, relevant and healing.

Biography
Gilah Yelin Hirsch, (BA UC Berkeley, MFA UCLA), is a painter, writer, theorist, filmmaker, lecturer and Professor of Art at California State University, Dominguez Hills (Los Angeles). She works in a multidisciplinary manner including art, design, anthropology, architecture, theology, philosophy, psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, and world culture. An internationally exhibiting artist in over 250 exhibitions since 1968 including the Israel Biennale, the Whitney Museum (New York), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hungarian National Museum, Slovak National Museum, Mueso del Pintura, Oaxaca, Mexico, and acquired by many major public and private collections, including the, Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Alexander Braun Collection, Budapest; Slovak National Museum, Bank of America National Banks, USA; University of California Medical Arts Collection, Los Angeles, CA, California State University Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles, and Museo del Pintura, Oaxaca. Hirsch’s work has been reviewed extensively worldwide, has appeared on covers and within dozens of international publications, along with articles and chapters about her life and work, e.g. LA Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980; Bridges Magazine, ISSSEEM, 2010, Issue 3; Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues; Subtle Energy & Energy Medicine, 2007 Vol 16, No 3, 1994, Vol 2, No 1; Feminists Who Changed America; LA Times; The Reenchantment of Art; The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s; History & Impact and Artists of the Spirit: New Prophets in Art & Mysticism. Hirsch’s own articles and theoretical papers have been published in scholarly journals internationally e.g. MIT’s Leonardo: Journal on Science and Art; International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies; Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal; Journal of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; Collections of Foreign Studies on Shamanism, Dalian Nationalities University, China. She has also authored the book Demonic to Divine: The Double Life of Shulamis Yelin (Vehicule Press). Hirsch’s film Cosmography: The Writing of the Universe, an investigation into the relation between origin of alphabet, pattern in nature and the neurology of perception and cognition, has received worldwide interdisciplinary notice. Her current film, Reading the Landscape, brings these concepts to children of all ages in sixteen languages and cultures.

Hirsch’s numerous awards, honors, grants, fellowships and residencies include the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine’s (ISSSEEM) Alyce and Elmer Green Award for her “innovative blending of science and art;” US National Endowment for the Arts; California State University, CA; CLASS Foundation, CO; Panavision Inc; California Community Foundation, CA; Fieldmouse Foundation, CA; Takahashi Foundation CA; US Embassies of Slovakia and Ukraine; Mountain Conservation Recreation Authority, CA; ARTLAB, Civitella D’Aglioni, Italy, Dorland Mountain Colony, CA; Banff Center for the Arts, Canada; MacDowell Colony, NH; Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy; Tyrone Guthrie Center for the Arts, Ireland; International Painters’ Symposium, Slovakia; Tamarind Institute of Lithography, NM; St. Martin’s School of Art, London, England; Syracuse University, NY; Rim Institute, AZ., Morris Graves Foundation, CA; Songambele Arts Festival, Nairobi, Kenya. Besides leading numerous creativity and art and healing workshops worldwide, Hirsch has given over 300 presentations/keynotes on her work at universities, institutes and conferences internationally e.g. Santa Monica Museum, CA, Yale School of Divinity, CT; Haverford College, PA; McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; Institute of Art, Science & Healing, Berlin, Germany; International Society for the Study of Subtle Energy Medicine, KS; TED X at First International Festival of the Arts, Bhutan; UNESCO’s 2015 International Year of Light Exhibition and Symposium at the National Museum, Budapest, Hungary; the International Interdisciplinary Symmetry Society, Santorini, Greece and 30th Congress, Adelaide, Australia; International Society for the Academic Study of Shamanism in Alaska, US, Delphi, Greece, and Hanoi, Vietnam.

Gilah Yelin Hirsch resides in Venice, California. Her archives are housed in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.