This week we welcome Ariela Rothstein, a queer artist, librarian, mother and spouse living in Jackson Heights, NY. Granddaughter of Mexican sculptor Susika Karchmer, Rothstein was born in Massachusetts to a Jewish Mexican and American family. Rothstein graduated in 2010 from Yale College in 2010, where she took a painting class, and then moved to New York City to work as a public school history teacher.
Since then, they have completed drawings and block prints and their first solo show of oil paintings is on view at Espresso 77, a cafe and gallery in Jackson Heights. The works in “I See My World” feature members of Rothstein’s family and community, set in Jackson Heights, Cabo Verde (their partner Lauraberth Lima’s birthplace) and St Louis.
“My portraits are the people in my world who have not yet received all that they are due. I plan to expand my portfolio with other New Yorkers about whom I feel similarly –BIPOC, queer and trans, immigrant members of our community doing amazing things including but not limited to raising children, sight unseen, now to be seen.”
See more of Rothstein’s work on their Instagram.
