Born in 1988 and raised in Crown Heights Brooklyn, Hendel Futerfas is a sculptor, painter and mixed media artist whose practice draws inspiration from his upbringing in a loving and warm chassidic Jewish family, steeped in the tradition of chassidic mysticism. Futerfas explores the kabbalistic aphorism in his work ‘ the mind is sovereign over the heart in its essential nature;’ a metaphor for work and life; what starts as a flash of excitement and sketched blueprint of an idea can only be fully realized and given life through thoughtful intellectual and technical control and choice of medium.

Influenced by concepts of growth and transformation that reflect his understanding of his community, his Echo mirror series utilises Australian native timbers, which have the contrasting characteristics of being both hardy and stubborn but also mutable, revealing distinctive organic qualities shaped by the conditions of the landscape. The timbers are first transformed by their environment, then further manipulated by the artist. Futerfas states, “I select, resin-fill, and sculpt the timber, forever altering its appearance. There are contradictions in the process, which represent an internal process of transformation.”

His early inspiration and namesake was his great uncle, the chassidic artist Hendel Lieberman, a transformative figure in the New York Jewish community and Holocaust survivor. Futerfas lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.