Elke Reva Sudin’s “2am Loft Party,” 2010, from the painted series, Hipsters & Hassids.
Maybe you’ve seen Elke Reva Sudin, 24, walking around Williamsburg’s Northside? She’s petite and pretty, and, up until recently, had a full head of dreadlocks tucked into a headscarf, and was probably wearing a long skirt. Sudin also walked around the Southside dressed much the same way, but chances are you didn’t notice her there. She “passed” just as easily on that side of the neighborhood, taken by residents for another young, religious girl—albeit one carrying a sketchbook and a cadre of felt-tip pens. Sudin talked to everyone she met, found out their “stories,” and drew them (later making paintings of them in acrylic). All this was in service of a series she was creating as part of her senior BFA thesis at Pratt, its title: “Hipsters and Hassids.”
Today Sudin has become something of a human bridge between the worlds of contemporary art and Judaism. Along with her filmmaker husband Saul, 28, Sudin runs Jewish Art Now, a website that’s a clearinghouse and news organ for all things dealing with contemporary art and underground Jewish culture. She curates shows (Industry City in Sunset Park; Gallery Bar on the Lower East Side) and produces ambitious live-music/dj events that are helping to galvanize an already strong scene of young, Jewish-identifying artists. By winter, Jewish Art Now will also launch as a print publication. I sat Elke down during the high-holiday break to ask how the neighborhood helped forge her inner, cool-meets-Jew comfort zone.