Winter 2027 Art Opening: Found and Sacred - Ed Buttwinick

Winter 2027 Art Opening

Found and Sacred: Judaica Assemblages

Thursday, January 28, 7-9 PM

Ed Buttwinick

Artist’s Statement

I see through the lens of an artist fascinated by nature, art history, and the heritage and culture of Jewish identity. My work focuses on Judaic themes drawn from my upbringing and the well of our religion and its multifaceted past. The Jewish People have historically valued narrative and literacy, two vehicles of storytelling that are deeply woven into my art.

Duchamp and Rauschenberg influence the constructed assemblage techniques I use, in which relationships among eclectic, unrelated, and mundane materials express ideas and emotions. I speak the language of symbolism, paradox, and metaphor.

The path of my creative process is guided by walking the elusive edge between the real and the imagined, the serious and the playful. Striving to give meaning and significance to items that once lived in one form and now exist in another, a dialogue begins with drawings and coalesces with found objects. Line becomes shape while image and form become subject and theme. A particular moment or concept in our history is then revealed and the story is told.

Artist Bio

Ed Buttwinick is a Judaica themed assemblage artist in Los Angeles, California. He began his art education at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, and earned a B.A. in Art at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After teaching in L.A. City Schools for a decade, Ed, with his wife, Linda, co-founded the Brentwood Art Center (BAC) in 1971. The BAC is a school of fine art for children, teens, and adults, and has become a cultural landmark in the art community of West Los Angeles. During his 34 years as the BAC’s Director, Ed’s community service included working with the West Regional Advisory Council of the Cultural Affairs Department; A Window Between Worlds, a non-profit organization benefiting abused women and children; and the Board of the Los Angeles County Art Education Association. He was presented California’s Outstanding Supervisor of Art Education Award in 1987, and a City of Los Angeles Certificate Tribute Award in 2005. Ed’s work is held in the permanent collection of the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. He was a repeated guest lecturer at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at Hebrew Union College on the subject of art and spirituality, and his work was exhibited at American Jewish University. Ed passed away on October 9, 2025 leaving behind a unique body of Judaica work and the legacy of the Brentwood Art Center.