Visual Artist, Writer

Ronit Joy Holtz

KADIMA, ISRAEL

Ronit Joy Holtz (b. 1997, United States) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores memory, grief, faith, and healing through painting, sculpture, installation, and artist books. Raised between North America and the Middle East, her practice draws from personal narrative, material history, and contemporary ritual. Working with wax, found objects, archival documents, and symbolic materials, Holtz transforms everyday relics into contemporary vessels of remembrance.

Holtz earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting with academic honors from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), where she received the Outstanding Student Achievement Award. Her work has been exhibited internationally throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel in six solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions, and is held in more than 130 private collections across 14 countries. She completed the Coexistence in the Middle East Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a recipient of the Alma Home for Hebrew Culture Fellowship (2025–2026). Drawing from Judeo-Christian symbolism, commemorative traditions, and the archaeology of everyday life, Holtz layers wax, paper, and found materials to create contemporary reliquaries that preserve emotional, historical, and spiritual narratives. Through an intuitive yet research-driven process, her work invites reflection on remembrance as an active practice, where creation becomes an act of resilience, hope, and connection.

What are you making right now?

Right now, my studio is organized around three ongoing projects. I'm continuing Excavations in a Living Archive, a series of handmade artist books that collect memories through drawing, writing, and found materials. At the same time, I'm developing a new body of large wooden panels inspired by the form of book pages, alongside a sculptural nest series built from reclaimed objects. While each project uses different materials and scales, they're all part of the same investigation into memory, preservation, and how everyday objects can hold personal and collective histories.

What medium do you work in and what drew you to it?

A chosen medium? Even if I were stranded on an island, I'd probably find a way to use multiple mediums. I am a mixed-media junkie! I've never believed in limiting an idea to a single material... the work tells me what it wants to become, and I have to allow the layered dimensions! Always!

If you could spend an hour with anyone you admire, living or dead, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Are you kidding me? Obviously Jesus! An hour wouldn't be enough... I'd want to ask what it was really like to move through the world as a 1st-century Jewish teacher, when the temple chaos was present. I would also ask him what he thinks people misunderstood most about him, and what he'd think of everything built in his name to date. If there was any time left, I'd ask him for a favour and to introduce me to Mary Magdalene.

What do you need in your workspace to spark creativity?

A handful of paint markers (no fewer than 8), a pile of collage scraps, at least 5random objects pulled from my collection shelves, and a little gospel music playing in the background. Organized chaos.

What would you like people to understand about your work?

While my artwork often begins with deeply personal experiences of grief, faith, and loss, I hope those intimate stories become a place where others recognize fragments of their own. I believe that what often seems to divide us(pain, vulnerability, tragedy) can also become what connects us most deeply. Rather than preserving the past exactly as it was, my artwork asks how we continue to carry it forward, together. I hope viewers leave feeling that remembrance is not only an act of looking back, but also an act of creating what comes next, carrying with them a renewed sense of connection, compassion, and hope.

Has your identity, culture, heritage, or community influenced your creative practice?

Beyond a shadow of a doubt. I'm pretty sure I'm forever super glued to myJudeo-Christian upbringing, no escaping it! Thankfully, I also really don't want to. It has shaped the questions I ask, the symbols I return to, and the stories I keep telling.

What does success look like to you as a creative?

Creating honestly. Exploring deeply. Remembering always.