Icons
2020/1700/1943
Digital C-type print, PVC foam board, acrylic
190x140mm
2020/1937/1937
UV direct-to-media print on wood, acrylic and liquid leaf
190x140mm
1943/2020/1906
Digital C-type print, PVC foam board, acrylic
190x140mm
1700/2012/2021
Digital C-type print, PVC foam board, acrylic
190x140mm
2001/1340/1899
UV direct-to-media print on wood, acrylic and liquid leaf
190x140mm
1940/2023/1898
Digital C-type print, PVC foam board, acrylic
190x140mm
“The year 1250 is when the facial stereotype of the Jew, as the modern world came
to know it, was developed. This stereotype became so fixed that artists began to
realise they didn’t need to label the figure a Jew anymore because people knew this
is the “Jewish face.” – Sara Lipton, medieval historian
“Antisemitism works not as a virus or poison, as in so many formulations, but rather,
as a reservoir of readily available images and ideas that subsist in our political culture.”
– The Political Quarterly, Ben Gidley, Brendan McGeever, David Feldman
The visual stereotype of the Jew that emerged in the Middle Ages often depicted
Jews as repulsive and despicable, and made them instantly identifiable. Deployed to
warn Christians about the dangers of rejecting Christianity, these physiognomic
caricatures – a precursor to eugenics and scientific racism – became a significant
factor in the dissemination and promulgation of attitudes rather than a mere
reflection of them.
Esther Gabrielle Kersley’s Icons are created from found anti-Jewish images collected
by the artist over five years from a wide range of sources spanning 1312 to the
present day. The process of disassembling these troubling yet familiar images, which
are then reconfigured into three-dimensional collage reliefs, examines how the past
continues to influence the present. Over the centuries, these visual tropes have
endured across time and place, becoming pervasive shadow images that are part of
our cultural landscape.
While the source images reflect the non-Jewish gaze and the power of the mythical Jew that has taken
on a life of its own, Kersley’s distortion of these image responds to the ways in which they
have also entered the Jewish imagination. Jewish identity is constituted within these images,
not only outside them.
Source images can be found here.
All photographs: Rob Greig, 2025