GoodWill

“The entangled relationship between old and the new, the traditional and modern”

My creative process in creating this piece was integral to experiencing the relationship between the old and the new. Often in modern digital art, the objects in a piece are pixilated ephemera. Like philosophy, or reason, they are not tangible. The process of Reason, however, is one of deliberate steps in real time, with real objects.

I collected used electronics and religious items that people left behind, had outlived their usefulness, or had been replaced with something new.

The Goodwill store is a well-known community resource for all things old, but become new to us. This is where I went to find the items for my piece. The electronics that are the "new old" inspired in me to untangle the relationship between what we consider to be old, and what we so quickly replace it with. I created a digital image combining Spinoza's portrait - with a rising shadow mind of alternative thoughts. I attached the final print to the "new old" PC screen and painted it with gold and silver acrylic, to refurbish the screen and re-use it as a traditional picture frame. The once modern screen, now old, then repurposed to be a simple frame.

The final piece is a photograph of the temporary installation in my studio, which was then de-installed and the items re-donated back to the Goodwill.

Dorit Jordan Dotan, Israeli-German artist, lives and works in Chicago, IL. In her work Dorit combines her photography with innovative digital art. She creates Mixed Media exploring verity of materials, Video Art, Installation Art and Painting. Her images often express her social/political views. Through her creations, she attempts to call attention to social and cultural issues.

Dotan lives and works in Chicago, IL. She is a Fellow with the Jewish Art Salon, and was chosen for a fellowship at the Midwest Jewish Artists Lab at Spertus Institute, Chicago, Illinois.

Her work has been exhibited in The USA, Israel and around the world. In recent years she has exhibited often in the HUC Museum New York, in a continuing process of creating contemporary Jewish art.

Dorit has participated in the Jerusalem Biennale in 2015 and 2017. She curated an exhibition at the Evanston Art Center in 2017. Dotan juried and curated an exhibition for Woman Made Gallery, Chicago. In 2019 she participated in Doing/Thinking residency at Wedge Projects Chicago and created her own Site Specific Installation.

She has received numerous awards, including Cultural Fund Grant from the Illinois Arts Council , Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights, USA, and The New Israel Fund, Israel.

Dotan was chosen for artist residency with The Institut für Alles Mögliche, Berlin, Germany in 2020.

Permanent Exhibition at Park Avenue Synagogue's new Center for Lifelong Learning in New York City

Permanent Collection at The HUC Museum, New York, NY, USA