“The Gated Garden”, oil paint on linen. 66 x 184 inches. 2026.
Preface
Various people have asked me to write about the ideas I have been referring to recently in a series of paintings. There have also been many conversations around the source text itself, including with my study partner, David Kusniec, with whom I worked with in-depth over several months.
I have not yet written about these ideas in any formal way. Instead, what follows is a gathering of my own thoughts—a kind of soliloquy, a moment to document—focused exclusively on The Gated Garden, my largest painting to date (15 feet wide).
It is not intended as an explanation of the source text, but rather as an invitation into the process by which sustained study gradually becomes embodied and finds its way into painting.
From the Studies
Inspired by a richly esoteric writing by Rabbi Shmuel Schneerson (the Rebbe Maharash), this painting portrays an imaginative garden scene.
The garden is a metaphor for our inner life. A place where self is cultivated: opposites united, meaning sought, and, with patience and commitment, a deep wellspring of vitality becomes accessible.
In Toras Shmuel, [1] the writing by the Rebbe Maharash, we learn that, connected to the concepts of rivers and wellsprings, is the concept of the gate, fence, or separation. He concludes by outlining a series of transformative steps the individual takes in order to become more connected to infinite life and essential truth. The initial step is one of self-restraint and intellectual focus, followed by a connection to powerful, pure vitality. The discipline necessary to progress toward greater personality development is symbolized by this gate.
My painting is not an illustration of his text, but rather a record of a personal process that remained alongside me during my studies, personal quest, and development. It began in February 2026 and was completed in July 2026, with long pauses.
Nowhere in Rabbi Shmuel's text does he speak of vessels or birds. Those are entirely from my own symbolic vocabulary. Yet the poetic language of Song of Songs 4:12—the verse with which The Rebbe Maharash begins his discourse—is highly evocative to the imagination:
Mock-up installation, for scale.
A garden locked
Is my own, my bride,
A fountain locked,
A sealed-up spring.
The birds, we could say, remain as highly sublimated, symbolic stand-ins for the male, female, and third, intermediary or transcendent, elements which may be called the core structures of our inner being.
The fact that the artwork contains my own personal development of thought and feeling, rather than a predetermined vision, is what allows the work to remain a "talisman," according to those who have studied my painting practice in depth.
I hope that these works illuminate the darkness of our internal worlds with the light of the external world.
On Painting
Stylistically, The Gated Garden represents a synthesis of my Fragments and Narrative Paintings.
Looking back, it seems that almost as soon as I publicly defined the two series, something further began to happen within my practice. This isn’t surprising, as my practice is rooted in an exploratory nature that I don’t limit, but allow to deepen until natural synthesis and series is reached. For me, painting is a way of discovering ideas, expressing embodiment and presence, while also discovering aesthetic possibilities.
For me, this synthesis lies in bringing together the ambiguity and atmosphere of the Fragment paintings with the more explicit imagery of the Narrative Paintings. Here, that imagery remains more sublimated than my typical narrative works, and the painterly approach is highly atmospheric.
This is, in a sense, simply a note from the painting studio.
Footnote:
¹ Primary Text | Rabbi Shmuel Schneerson (the Rebbe Maharash), Toras Shmuel, 5640, Vol. 1, Ma'amar beginning with the verse "Gal Na'ul" (Song of Songs 4:12), p. 150 (ק"נ). The present essay is a personal reflection inspired by this ma'amar, not a commentary on it.
Kehot Publication Society, first published in this edition beginning in 1945 from the manuscripts transcribed by Reb Shmuel Sofer of Lubavitch.
Kehot Online edition: https://store.kehotonline.com/prodinfo.asp?number=HRM-TS40.1
Process Photos, in Reverse Chronological Order
