ESTHER KIRSHENBAUM, MIXED MEDIA ARTIST

Getting Back

Exhibition showing: October 3 – November 17, 2025
Artist Reception: Saturday, October 25, 2025 from 6-8 PM

SAMPLES FROM THE GALLERY

Artist Biography:

Esther Kirshenbaum is a multimedia artist with a degree in biology and pre-medicine from the University of Michigan. Despite her love for the sciences, she found that her passion for life was best expressed through her art.

Before her full time shift to art, she had been teaching biology in Australia. That positioned her to travel throughout the Philippines, China, and Indonesia where she observed all manner of art making. Her first encounter with encaustic painting, her current medium, was through batik lessions in a backyard in Jogyakarta, Indonesia. Later she would learn papermaking in Spain and metalworking from a local blacksmith.

She has exhibited works in all these media locally and nationally. She curated The Michigan Guild Gallery for several years and was the Director of Installation Art for the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

From 2010 to 2016, she lived and maintained a studio in New York CIty where she was part of Brooklyn Museum’s Go Brooklyn Artists, The Ground Floor Gallery, the Third Ward, and The Candy Factory. She was commissioned to do a sculptural trellis for the 2015 Obama White House.

Recent local exhibitions include a solo show at the Kerrytown Concert House and group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) in conjunction with the University of Michigan Taubman Faculty Art Science Project, 22 Huron, and the Gutman Gallery. She was awarded a residency in New Mexico by Some Serious Business.

Her work remains in collections including The University of Michigan, Beaumont Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and others.

Learn and see more at estherkirshenbaum.com

Artist Statement:

Kirshenbaum’s new exhibit is animated by the possibilities of curiosity and renewal, of getting back to the mystery of change. In this collection, Kirshenbaum explores the interplay of physical challenges and the unknown of experimentation. She continues to expand her use of materials as she seeks the restorative potential of art-making. The diversity of images and techniques evoke the joy of getting back. Works will include encaustic and acrylic painting, collage and printmaking of abstraction and playful realism.