In Conversation: Liat Yossifor and Ed Schad

Liat Yossifor and Ed Schad chat about their poetry and painting collaboration at PATRON Gallery in Chicago.

Liat Yossifor in conversation with Los Angeles-based writer and curator Ed Schad, on the occasion of their continued collaboration and Yossifor’s current exhibition Letters Apart, on view at PATRON Gallery through March 20, 2021 In the late 80s, following her immigration to the United States, Liat Yossifor corresponded with a childhood friend in Israel through hand-written letters. The exchange became a form of storytelling and a way for her to remain connected to home. Yossifor’s current exhibition, Letters Apart, draws upon a similarly intimate exchange of ideas between Yossifor and Schad. Throughout the last year, Yossifor has shared images of her daily oil paintings on paper with Schad, to which he has responded by writing quiet, impactful poems that pull at the undercurrents of history, emotion, chance, and bodily presence that exists in her work. A canyon pulled apart by an etching river, Boring and taking on the rocks and rushing Them away, mineral by mineral, to the sea, One with the sky, a hawk, soaring through, Of the same ancient entropic matter, Eyes and hook, claw and feather, down, Red and sharp, carving an echo in the sky. -Ed Schad, Carve, A reflection on Liat Yossifor, Bird-Like, 2020 This continued exchange will come together in the form of a new book of Yossifor’s paintings and Schad’s poetry, to be released in 2022.