The Betsy Exhibitions

Susan Lerner began the TORN project in March 2024 as a way to process the atrocities of October 7th in Israel. “Kidnapped from Israel” posters began appearing on window fronts and scaffolding poles in her neighborhood. Overnight, every night, the posters were slashed, torn and sprayed with paint, violated once again. The recollection of her grandparents’ traumatic experiences – escaping the Eastern European pogroms – came flooding back. Her heart felt torn to pieces. While her family raised her to believe “Never Again”, “Again” was staring at Susan. She began gathering the torn images scattered on the sidewalk and creating collages from the desecrated material. Like a fingerprint, each unique piece represents one hostage that had been abducted. The work is a metaphor of the resilience of the Jews to put the pieces back together, time and time again, in the face of adversity. TORN, as it is defined in the dictionary, has multiple meanings: “to cause anguish and distress,” “to attack without restraint or caution,” even “finding it difficult to choose between two possibilities.” But the hostages had no choice as they were forcefully torn from their homes and communities. During the mourning period for Jews, a ribbon or garment is torn to represent the tear in your heart when losing a loved one. While creating these collages, "I tore the material to symbolize the anguish we feel as Jews. 251 collages, each numbered and as unique as the individual kidnapped have been created. It is a way to honor the captives while praying for their safe return, and to keep us alert to virulent antisemitism in America.”

Susan Lerner is a New York City based hand-cut collage artist. In her prior profession as a certified flavor chemist, Susan “collaged” chemicals to create unique flavors but now she uses paper as her medium. Since 2017, her work has been shown in seven solo shows in NYC and Northwest CT, and throughout the world. She is the co-founder of NY Collage Ensemble, which promotes a supportive community of collage artists. Her work can be found at www.mixdmediamashup.com and Instagram @TORNproject. Susan lives with her family in NYC.

If you are interested in purchasing Susan Lerner’s artwork visit https://www.mixdmediamashup.com/torn-project or contact Susan directly: susanjlerner @ gmail.com.