Gilah Yelin Hirsch | multidisciplinary artist, writer, filmmaker and professor of art emerita at California State University Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles.
Gilah Yelin Hirsch Venice, CA Age 79
What keeps you excited in the studio? I am riveted by the infinitely unfolding process of following and furthering the unknown. Stroke by stroke surprises are released opening new doors to cognition, recognition and perception.
Looking back at your trajectory as an artist, how would you say your work has developed? From the start to this day my creative path has been a veiled diary cloistered yet revealed in newly born metaphors producing previously unknown imagery.
What role do you think the artist has in today’s society? The role of the artist is to reveal universal truth in an original and significant manner as one sees and feels it. Technique is developed to enrich the image and make it more psychophyisologically persuasive.
What’s the most important advice you could give to an aspiring artist? Albert Einstein wrote me the following in response to a letter I wrote him when I was ten years old. “Always form your opinions according to your own judgment.” This has been the guide of my life and that which I pass on to others.
Does age matter in art? Why or why not? Hopefully with age comes awareness, intelligence, cellular comprehension of consequence, growing wisdom, profundity, confidence in one’s experimental innovation, and courage to express one’s singularity. The artist must acknowledge responsibility for each image knowing that it will affect anyone who sees and experiences it. It is therefore up to the artist to understand the power of form and to act accordingly to promote the greater good.
What can we look forward to from you next? If the past predicts the future, continuous and consistent searching into the unknown, allowing the image to lead the way to new depths of invention and discernment, will characterize emerging work.
Is there anything else you would like to share about being an artist later in life? Knowledge and intuition play a greater role as the road and time ahead grow shorter yet wider. It is in allowing unlimited breadth of vision and association that we carry and discover universal hidden secrets; and it is in this rare stratum where common elements of humanity reside.
From Chaos to Coherence, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 50″ x 50″ Collection of Lokman Hekim University, Ankara, Turkey