Swept up by Nazi forces at the age of 15, Alice Lok Cahana miraculously survived imprisonment in two different concentration camps and was liberated by Allied Forces in April of 1945. While imprisoned she pledged that, if she survived, she would become an artist.
After the war she made her way to the U.S. and studied painting at the University of Houston and Rice University, and spent her life building a family and creating an impressive body of work.
The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is now featuring her work in “Survival and Intimations of Immortality: The Art of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana.”
“Her art definitely explores the horror of the Holocaust,” says Mariah Berlanga-Shevchuk, the museum’s Head of Public Engagement, “but she’s really transforming and transmuting that experience of pain and difficulty and loss into something that is healing and restorative, both for her and for the viewer.” Cahana said that her work was “turning ashes into rainbows.”
The show goes beyond the work of Alice Lok Cahana, showcasing the art of her son and granddaughter, looking at generations of trauma and healing through art and activism.
The title of the show springs from the idea that humans are constantly seeking immortality. “Artwork is a way that we can live on after we have passed away,” says Berlanga-Shevchuk. “The meaning that we’re putting into our artwork can live forever.”
Rabbi Ronnie Cahana is a poet who suffered a massive stroke and then went on to make stirring poetry through a painstaking process of eye blinks that are transcribed letter by letter. Though he’s been a poet all his life, he’s leaned even more into his writing since his stroke.
His daughter, Alice’s granddaughter, Kitra Cahana, is a photographer and filmmaker. Her colorful photographs spread a message of justice and dignity for communities facing oppression.
“She felt like it was her obligation, because her grandmother survived the Holocaust, to go out and make work that had an impact on the world — helping to bring light to other cases of injustice around the world,” said Berlanga-Shevchuk.
Kitra learned how to make art as a child while spending time in her grandmother’s studio. “And you can really see how, two generations later, Kitra is very influenced by her grandmother Alice’s style of work,” Berlanga-Shevchuk added.
In the exhibit, Alice’s massive paintings are beautifully paired with Kitra’s photographs and Rabbi Ronnie’s poetry, creating a narrative and a generational throughline that illuminates one family’s radical celebration of life.
“It’s an important and extremely timely exhibition,” says Berlanga-Shevchuk. “The Holocaust happened almost 80 years ago, but the lessons that we can take from it are universal and relevant as ever.”
“Survival and Intimations of Immortality: The Art of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana” runs through May 25, at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education at 724 NW Davis in Portland.
