When Tanya Fredman left St. Louis for Rwanda late in 2008, she went with a yearning to help Rwandan children orphaned by genocide, with extraordinary artistic talent and with a commitment to modern Orthodox Judaism.

There, teaching art to orphans in the rolling green and red hills of the African countryside, she combined all three and she found common humanity with the Rwandan people.

In her exhibit of paintings and fabric collages now at the Jewish Community Center near Creve Coeur, Fredman, 26, shows that the soul of Rwandan life and soul of her Jewish faith and texts can blend and even teach new truths and ways of looking at the world.

At 7 p.m. Monday, at the JCC, Fredman, who grew up in University City, will present a program, "Art of Seeing: Journey to Rwanda" in the JCC Performing Arts Center, 2 Millstone Campus Drive. The exhibit will be in the JCC library through Oct. 23.

Fredman studied studio art at Brandeis University. She taught art in Israel in 2008 at Yemin Orde Youth Village, which was founded in the early 1950s to settle children orphaned by the Holocaust and which now serves orphans and at-risk youth from around the world. Her Rwandan sojourn was at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, modeled after the Israeli village. Fredman taught art to children, some of whom had never seen a pen or paper.

One one level, the two peoples have in common a history of experiencing genocide — the genocide of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews and the Rwandan genocide of 1994 which pitted neighbor against neighbor.

Fredman, who is also a dancer and a writer, explains in a poem:

"I took a journey to Rwanda, Land of a Thousand Hills, land of red clay earth and pineapple plants, of firewood and songs, land thirsty for change and struggling with memory.

"I took a journey to my soul, strengthened by the wisdom of Jewish tradition, shaken by the tears my people have shed. I learned to cry for others, and then to stand up again."

She continues:

"How do we see each other? As numbers? Faces? Friends?

Six million.

Eight hundred thousand.

One."

While the art in this exhibit appears to focus on Rwandan people and life, most of the pieces have underlying themes from Jewish holidays. She also experimented with different textures and materials to combine Rwandan fabrics and more Western-style art materials.

A series of four paintings is drawn from the Passover seder narration referring to the Four Sons. In the text, the seder refers to the four: the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son and the son who does not know enough to ask questions.

In her portraits, Fredman says she looks at individuals with those traits facing themselves and their communities in the wake of the Rwandan destruction.

In another, a three-dimensional piece of art called "And it all turned upside down," she shows a Rwandan landscape with puppet-like, theatrical figures reminiscent of the Jewish holiday of Purim. The title is based on a line from the Book of Esther when the Jews were facing imminent destruction — which they averted.

Some of the art on display is from her most recent series of paintings, "Project 100 Days," which incorporates Jewish holidays from the same period of 100 days starting in April that Rwandans each year reflect on the 1994 genocide.

Some of the works combine fabric she brought back from Rwanda with more traditional oils or acrylic for painting. In other pieces, she uses paint to look like Rwandan fabrics.

Fredman, who was interviewed at the JCC library surrounded by her art, said smiling, "I like that this is in a Beit Midrash, a place of learning and a place of books."

She also was pleased that an article about her work would appear today on Yom Kippur. She has been meditating on the role of forgiveness in Judaism's most holy day and among Rwandans who are learning to forgive one another after their genocide.

The tragedies of both cultures actually made her friendship with Rwandans all the easier, she said. She made fast friends with the kitchen staff, who would helped her keep kosher. The strong religious faith of the Rwandan people she met — they are Christians and mostly Catholic — drew them to each other.

After Rwanda, Fredman participated in an art fellowship, studying Jewish texts with other artists, musicians and actors. She has taught art for two years at a Jewish high school in Manhattan.

She and her husband will soon depart for Israel, where they will live on a kibbutz and pursue their professional passions and love of people and Judaism.