Elke Reva Sudin (born 1987) is a Jewish-American painter, illustrator and lecturer. In 2010, her ''Hipsters and Hassids'' painting series premiered in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, comparing and contrasting her

Hasidic Jewish Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism ( Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of cont ...

origins and hipster Brooklyn cultures. She founded NY Drawing Booth in 2014, and is also a founder of Jewish Art Now.

Early life and education

Sudin was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and raised in nearby Longmeadow.Adam Dickter
"Elke Reva Sudin, 23,"
''The Jewish Week'', May 9, 2011.Susan Dunne
"'Hipsters and Hassids' At Mandell JCC,"
''

Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New H ...

'', January 11, 2012. She attended

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was founded in 1887 ...

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behi ...

, earning a BFA in Illustration in 2009.Sarah Schmerler
"Hipsters & Hassids - how one woman's sketchbook started a movement,"
''Williamsburg Greenpoint News + Arts'', October 14, 2011.

Career

''Hipsters and Hassids''

Sudin's 2010 ''Hipsters and Hassids'' series depicts the parallel lives of the disparate cultural groups in

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick and East Williamsburg to the east; and the East River to the west. As of the 2020 Unit ...

, known for feuding over a variety of issues, such as whether or not there should be bicycle lanes down the

Satmar Satmar ( Yiddish: סאַטמאַר, Hebrew: סאטמר) is a Hasidic group founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, in the city of Szatmárnémeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is an offshoot of the Sighet Hasidic dynas ...

stretch of

Bedford Avenue Bedford Avenue is the longest street in Brooklyn, New York City, stretching and 132 blocks, from Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint south to Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, and passing through the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyves ...

. Sudin's colorful paintings examine the similarities and differences of north Williamsburg's hipster residents with south Williamsburg's Satmar Hasidic Jews, such as ''2 am'', with side-by-side paintings showing a group of partying community members, one of hipsters, one of Hasids.Uri Zer Aviv
"Brooklyn's Hipster Hasidim Try on a New Fringe,"
''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner ...

'', December 18, 2012. To create the series, Sudin interviewed neighborhood residents in Williamsburg and made a drawing of them in her sketchbook with a felt-tip pen. She would later make acrylic paintings based on the drawings. The series was originally produced as part of her senior BFA thesis at the Pratt Institute. It premiered in 2010 in New York City. In the 2012 documentary '' Punk Jews'' (dir.

Jesse Zook Mann Jesse Zook Mann is an American documentary producer and director best known for ''Punk Jews'' and ''My First Time''. His work has appeared on NBC, VICE, MTV, Al Jazeera, and The Science Channel. Mann concentrates on subjects revolving around sub ...

), Sudin is profiled and presents paintings from ''Hipsters and Hassids''. John Leland
"The Orthodox Fringe,"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', March 9, 2013.

NY Drawing Booth

In 2014, Sudin founded NY Drawing Booth, an event service in which a team of artists circulate among the guests and offer to create quick, realistic hand-drawn digital portraits using an

iPad Pro The iPad Pro is a premium model of Apple's iPad tablet computer. It runs iPadOS, a tablet-optimized version of the iOS operating system. The original iPad Pro was introduced in September 2015, and ran iOS 9. The second-generation iPad ...

and

Apple Pencil Apple Pencil is a line of wireless stylus pen accessories designed and developed by Apple Inc. for use with supported iPad tablets. The first-generation Apple Pencil was announced alongside the first iPad Pro on September 9, 2015. It communi ...

. The portraits can be emailed, live-tweeted, projected at the event, or printed on-site and made available on archival-quality paper as 4" by 6" portraits.Lisa Klug
"When artists meet technology, digital party favors follow,"
''

The Times of Israel ''The Times of Israel'' is an Israeli multi-language online newspaper that was launched in 2012. It was co-founded by Israeli journalist David Horovitz, who is also the founding editor, and American billionaire investor Seth Klarman.

'', January 23, 2016. Past clients include L'Oreal, IBM,

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

Marriott Hotels Marriott Hotels & Resorts is Marriott International's brand of full-service hotels and resorts based in Bethesda, Maryland. As of June 30, 2020, there were 582 hotels and resorts with 205,053 rooms operating under the brand, in addition to 160 ...

Bain Capital Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry sec ...

Godiva Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. Today, she is mainly rem ...

and ''

InStyle ''InStyle'' was an American monthly women's fashion magazine founded in 1994. It was published in the United States by Dotdash Meredith. In February 2022, it was announced that InStyle would cease print publications and move to a digital-only f ...

'' magazine.

Other work

Sudin has gained recognition for her 2009 series of portraits of

World Boxing Association The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is the oldest and one of four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Council (WBC), International Box ...

super welterweight champion boxer Yuri Foreman, which were exhibited as part of the DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival in 2009 at

Gleason's Gym Gleason's is a boxing gym located on the Brooklyn waterfront. The gym was founded by Peter Gagliardi, a former bantamweight, who changed his name to Bobby Gleason. It moved to Manhattan and then to Brooklyn. Gleason's is now owned by Bruce Silverg ...

in Brooklyn. In 2010, Sudin and her husband Saul Sudin founded the group Jewish Art Now, a website focused on contemporary Jewish art and culture."Week #10 Finalist: Elke Reva Sudin,"
Art Sprinter, May 7, 2015. They also founded ''SUDIN'' magazine, which explored similar topics and was later incorporated into Jewish Art Now. She also served as artistic director of ''PresenTense'' magazine from 2011 to 2013. Her 2013 series ''We Are Patriarchs'' is a series of portraits reimagining Biblical figures as contemporary Jews living in modern-day Brooklyn. The 12 oil paintings debuted at the Hadas Gallery in Brooklyn in 2013. A painting from the series, ''Joseph in Exile'', was included in the 2016 exhibit ''Brooklyn: Juxtaposition'' at Repair the World in Brooklyn.Jesse Bernstein
"Celebrating the Diversity of Brooklyn's Crown Heights Neighborhood Through Art,"
''Tablet'', July 1, 2016. "An exceptionally large and well executed piece" that portrays

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the m ...

and his Egyptian wife

Osnat Asenath (, ; Koine Greek: Ἀσενέθ, ''Asenéth'') is a minor figure in the Book of Genesis. Asenath was a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman. She was the wife of Joseph and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. There are tw ...

as Jews of color, it was cited as the standout of the exhibit by '' Tablet'' magazine.

Style

Sudin draws and paints portraits, urban landscapes and abstract conceptual landscapes, often with Jewish themes. She works on paper with watercolor and ink, on canvas with acrylics or oils, and also creates drawings using the iPad Pro.

Personal life

Sudin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, filmmaker Saul Sudin.

Honors and awards

* ''

The Jewish Week ''The Jewish Week'' is a weekly independent community newspaper targeted towards the Jewish community of the metropolitan New York City area. ''The Jewish Week'' covers news relating to the Jewish community in NYC. In March 2016, ''The Jewish W ...

'' 36 Under 36, 2011"36 Under 36 2011,"
''The Jewish Week'', May 9, 2011. * ''PresenTense'' Fellow, 2013 * Art Sprinter Emerging Jewish Artist Award finalist, 2015

References

External links

Official website

NY Drawing Booth website

Jewish Art Now website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sudin, Elke Reva Living people 1987 births Jewish American artists 21st-century American artists Artists from Springfield, Massachusetts Artists from Brooklyn Pratt Institute alumni American women illustrators American illustrators 21st-century American women artists Hipster (contemporary subculture) 21st-century American Jews