Mount Sinai
Between Heaven & Earth (1986)
Mt. Sinai at a Distance (1978)
Sinai (1999)
Sinai Diptych (1978)
Sinai Night (1978)
Sinai Rocks (1973)
Sinai Rocks at Dusk (1977)
Sinai Rocks in Sunlight (1975)
Sinai Summit (1973)
Sinai Summit (pastel) (1978)
After visiting the Mount Sinai region of Egypt in 1975, Golahny created a series of paintings and prints depicting the mountain where, according to the Hebrew Bible, Moses received from God the Ten Commandments and other divine laws. These images date from 1975-78. In 1999 the artist returned to the subject by creating the grand Sinai, rendered in oil and gold-leaf on canvas. Conceiving of this series in the 1970s led Golahny to read about and represent the cosmos. In the 1990s she turned from wonder at the cosmos to mourning at earthly tragedy, creating abundant work on the Holocaust, or Shoah.
For a 2003 three-woman exhibition at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., Golahny wrote about the most recent painting in the Sinai series, recalling her visit to the region with her husband twenty-eight years earlier:
"Our journey through Sinai generated many paintings and prints of the inspiring and often primordial landscape. I created these always with the goal of being ‘true’ to the topography of the area. Sinai has been an enduring theme. It is not just a landscape - [it also conveys] the excitement in the heavens and the reciprocal significance for those on earth."
For a 2002 exhibition at the Perkins Gallery in Stoughton, Mass., Golahny commented on returning to the subject after many years:
"After a journey through Sinai I did many paintings and prints of the landscape. The visual excitements generated by the color, light, and vitality of unusual desert rock formations could only be rivaled by their spiritual and cultural importance. Sinai became the foundation for my work on the Cosmos. Throughout the Sinai region I encountered unique mountain shapes - especially at the summit where the forms could be contemporary sculptures of people huddled together. During the last few years I believe that I have gained in understanding the significance of Sinai, so that the decision to return again to this theme seemed inevitable - and the painting 'painted itself.' Coming directly after work on the Shoah, Sinai is a poignant affirmation for me."