Who By Fire
Mindy Solomon is proud to present Who By Fire by Zoë Buckman. This marks the artist’s first solo show at the gallery. Drawing its title from Leonard Cohen’s haunting reinterpretation of the Jewish prayer Unetaneh Tokef, the exhibition invokes themes of mortality, judgment, and spiritual reckoning—resonant questions that echo through Jewish ritual and lived experience.
This new body of work represents a deeply personal exploration of Jewish identity, memory, and collective resilience. Through photographs of family and community members in intimate, domestic spaces, often within their own homes, Buckman considers the fragility of sanctuary and belonging. These domestic images become sites of both comfort and vulnerability, reflecting a history in which the idea of “home” for the Jewish people has often been precarious, impermanent, and shadowed by displacement.
Using a process that combines ink and acrylic painting on vintage domestic textiles, which are subsequently hand-embroidered, Buckman’s work invokes a language of care, labor, and tradition. The tactile quality of the materials echoes generational rituals passed down through matrilineal lines, while the imagery and text delve into ongoing themes in her practice: generational trauma, sexual violence, and bodily autonomy.
In Who By Fire, Buckman adds a vital layer to these concerns by confronting denialism, particularly as it intersects with antisemitism, misogyny, and racism. In this moment of intensified fear and isolation within Jewish communities, her work serves as both a mirror and a balm, offering viewers an opportunity to reflect on inherited histories and the quiet, persistent strength that endures through them.
Zoë Buckman’s Who By Fire is a call toward introspection, tenderness, and radical presence. It is a reclamation of space — physical, cultural, and emotional — for voices too often dismissed or distorted. Through this series, Buckman invites us to sit with both grief and joy, memory and possibility, and to consider how identity is shaped not only by struggle, but by the fierce will to remain.
About Zoë Buckman
Zoë Buckman is a British, Jewish multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, textiles, lens-based media, ceramics, neon, and painting, exploring themes of Intersectional Feminism, mortality, and equality.
Notable solo shows have included TENDED at Lysles & King NYC, BLOODWORK at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery London, Nomi at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, No Bleach Thick Enough, at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, Heavy Rag at Fort Gansevoort Gallery New York, Let Her Rave at Gavlak Gallery Los Angeles, Imprison Her Soft Hand at Project for Empty Space, Newark, Every Curve at PAPILLION ART, Los Angeles, and Present Life at Garis & Hahn Gallery, New York.
Group shows include those at SF Moma; The National Portrait Gallery, London; The Jewish Museum, NYC; Crystal Bridges, Arkansas; The Broad Museum, Los Angeles; The Museum of Art & Design, NYC; The Parish Art Museum, NY; The Baltimore Museum of Art; MOCA Virginia; The Camden Arts Centre, London; The Studio Museum in Harlem; The Children’s Museum of the Arts; The Shirley Fitterman Center NY; MASSIMODECARLO Gallery Hong Kong; Mother Gallery, Beacon NY; Paul Kasmin Gallery NY; Goodman Gallery South Africa; Jack Shainman Gallery NY; Monique Meloche Chicago; NYU Florence, Italy; Grunwald Art Gallery, Indiana University; the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia; the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA; and The National Museum of African-American History & Culture, Washington, DC.
Buckman studied at the International Center of Photography (ICP) and was awarded an Art Matters Grant in 2017, The Art Change Maker Award 2019 at The New Jersey Visual Arts Center, and The Art and Social Impact Award 2020 at Baxter St NYC. She completed a residency at Mana Contemporary in 2017.
Public works include a MENDED: a Times Square Midnight Momenta, a mural, We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident, in collaboration with Natalie Frank at the Ford Foundation Gallery of New York & Live Arts in NYC, and various billboard projects with For Freedoms. In February 2018, Buckman unveiled her first Public Sculpture presented by Art Production Fund on Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, a large scale outdoor version of her neon sculpture Champ, which has been up for several years.
Buckman’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; The National Portrait Gallery, London; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Jewish Museum, NYC; The Rose Art Museum; Brandeis University; The Peabody Essex, Boston; The Chrysler Museum, Virginia; and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
