Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina was under military rule. During this period, Jews were increasingly targeted for kidnapping and torture by the ruling junta: about 1,000 of the 9,000 known victims of state terrorism were Jews. At the age of 19, Laura Murlender was abducted by government forces and placed in solitary confinement. For 11 days, she was hooded, her hands and feet chained, seeing only darkness. “Liberated by mistake,” her abductors came to her family home looking for her again, but upon her return her family had sent her immediately to Israel, fearing for her safety. The night of her return, she began her journey to Israel. Murlender depicts her experiences in her paintings – mute witnesses of her solitary hooded confinement.
Laura Murlender is an Argentinian visual artist who exhibits and works in the USA, Israel, Canada, France, Mexico and Argentina. She graduated with honors from the Fine Arts Department at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in 1982 and moved to Paris for postgraduate studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1984. She participated in group exhibitions in the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Grand Palais and Galeries Bernanos. While in France, she traveled extensively to Italy, Greece, Spain, England, Holland and Belgium. She was awarded several prizes including: America-Israel Cultural Foundation, Helena Rubinstein Foundation; Samuel Prize in Visual Arts Canada, the French Government Grant, and photography awards; Brenner, Ilford, and Agfa. Her work is exhibited in museums, and displayed in private collections, around the globe. Murlender lived in Jerusalem from 1978-1984; in Paris, 1984-85, between 1985 and 1990 she worked and exhibited in Mexico City, returning to Argentina in 1991. Currently she lives and works in New York and Buenos Aires.
You can visit her at www.lauramurlender.com/
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