Elisheva Gavra

Elisheva Gavra (b. 1992) received her B.A in art history from Tel Aviv University and MFA (photo concentration) from Columbia University. Her practice centers on creating images through photography and writing, and an approach guided by relationality—where practicing portrait photography is intervening between self and reality(other). Informed by critical theories of anti-colonialism and postcapitalism, turning to mechanical image making as a vehicle of navigation, and drawing on a personal history of transitioning out of religious fundamentalism, she strives to illuminate mechanisms of truth and experience using photography and writing as languages that formed out of a desire to unite feelings and truth. Her studio practice interrogates visual representation and indexicality, until they admit to tensions of authorship and authority, indoctrination and emancipation.

Currently, her subjects include an examination of the Hasidic community she grew up in and transitioned out of as a teen. Utilizing street photography as a tool to speculate or enact a return and the image as evidence of a failure.