Natural Treasures
representations of nature in textiles
14.05.2022 – 28.07.2022
Curators: Efi Gen, Vera Pilpul, Keren Weisshaus
“In the beginning everything was made of textile. People lived in tents, babies were born in textiles, people were buried in textiles, textile was an inseparable part of our lives. Now, it is reintegrating and I believe that it is the material of the twenty-first century and that architecture, transportation, bridges, health, art, design and fashion – everything will be made of textiles of all kinds.”
Over the past two years, we have experienced a dissonance between shutting in and stepping out of lockdowns, between having to wrap ourselves, defending ourselves against the threat of an epidemic, and longing for a soft and comforting touch, an exodus to nature. Textile is essentially a material that envelops and protects the body, creating a buffer between it and the environment. As such, it is a wonderful agent for representing the longings and dilemmas we have all been facing. The textile, for its colors, patterns and textures, simulates and corresponds with nature and its many representations; The flora and fauna, animal skin, vegetation, natural landscapes – all serve as a basis for inspiration, imitation, model creation, decoration, camouflage and also as a source of power and great influence for creators, designers and artists.
The group exhibition, featuring works by 18 artists, aims to offer a position that addresses the tension, as well as the connection between representations of nature and textile, as perceived by them and the way they pour and encode the world of their personal, social images, metaphors and symbolism. The viewer is given the opportunity to examine the image of nature that emerged from this process of research and distillation.
Some of the artists used traditional textile techniques (sewing, embroidery, knitting, etc.), producing simulations of nature that illustrate the space between nature and man-made artifacts. Others utilized the techniques and practices of textile and transferred them to other material worlds (e.g. to lace made of paper, to embroidery in porcelain, or to a rug made of adhesive paper). The works of Maria Merfeld, Amalia Frank, Bianca Severijns, Lida Sharet Masad and Dalia Fisch Benari use a material that replaces the textile while also attempting to resemble it, using a laborious handicraft practice that produces multiplicity, if not excess.
In the case of Yuval Etzioni, Ilana Efrati, Gali Cnaani and Ella Amitay Sadovsky, textiles are actually used in the works, but go beyond their function. In Ilana Efrati’s work it is used as a substrate for actions that accelerate the processes of nature, Yuval Etzioni uses pieces of synthetic grass represented by carpet parts, creating vistas of agricultural fields. For Ella Amitai Sadovsky, the textile produces the landscape and even the domesticated nature, as Gali Canaani deals with fiber and the basic components of textile and weaving. the textile is joined by embroidery as a central practice, and the personal and distinct handwriting of the artist becomes as clear as day in the works of Bracha Guy and Itamar Sagi.
Using wool, Anna Milman created a world that is simultaneously a warm blanket and an up-to-date landscape image of natural and industrialized realms. Andi Arnovitz uses textiles to create a socio-critical statement about ‘cover’ within a gender context. Tal Shochat deals extensively with a dialectical space between the outside and the inside, between nature and the artificial. She detaches a carpet full of ornamentation from its natural location and turns it into the backdrop of a pomegranate-laden tree. In doing so, she creates a dreamy and sublime space, with meticulous aesthetics and abundant beauty.
Nadia Adina Rose poetically uses the soft and homely properties of the textile to reach into an external natural landscape that is linked to personal experiences. Noga Yudkovik Etzioni presents a threatening nature through the creation of ‘second skin’ in fabric. The works of Arie Berkowitz and Rotem Finzi as well as the works of Ella Amitay Sadovsky connect and deal with the meanings, material and physical closeness between humans and animals, woven through these fabrics, telling a narrative that is perhaps a wish, a longing for an imminent, symbolic, emotional connection.
The exhibition presents artistic metamorphoses inspired by the beauty and seduction of nature, through techniques of sewing, embroidery, knitting, weaving as well as new materials that turn textile into a representational, symbolic and researchable site. Is it a pastoral nature? Does it pose a threat, or is it moments before extinction? Is there a romanticization left in the process and in the image itself? or is the textile getting an extreme, colorful, laborious expression, and perhaps nature is free of all these and has withered.
Text: Efi Gen, Vera Pilpul, Keren Weisshaus
Noga Yudkovik Etzioni | Yuval Etzioni | Bianca Severijns | Maria Merfeld | Nadia Adina Rose | Ilana Efrati | Anna Milman | Lida Sharet Masad | Tal Shochat | Dalia Fisch Benari | Rotem Finzi | Ella Amitay Sadovsky | Bracha Guy | Itamar Sagi | Andi Arnovitz | Arie Berkowitz | Gali Cnaani | Amalia Frank
Noga Yudkovik Etzioni
Fermata
At first glance we can feel the modesty of the paintings. What does ‘modest’ mean? Their power is not in their declaration, their beauty is not related to size or color, or to a specific composition, but to a quiet complex that conjures a stopping of the gaze, alongside times (not one time) that take place at the same time within the painting.
Sigal observes and draws as a witness-narrator, telling about the characters they met or events they experienced and therefore they are involved in the story. Sometimes the observation is done outside, sometimes inside the studio or from its viewing point. A view of a balcony and flower pots, a man, a movement trapped, that one he left among his objects. Sigal grasps her chosen points of view, ‘pieces of space’, gently, softly, while at the same time refining the movement from the inside to the outside, from her to the object and back. It seems that Sigal’s act of observation and painting, as well as the observation that painting allows the viewer, are related to the silence and concentration so opposite to the disturbing noise of inner chatter.
Inside the exhibition space is a film, shot and edited by Eran Ackerman. A special opportunity to hear Sigal Tsabari ‘On Painting’ as well as two of the subjects of her portrait paintings speak about the experience: Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld and Eran Ackerman.
Yuval Etzioni
The ‘lamenters’ were created following a series of drawings depicting wounded soldiers with a large bandage covering their faces. A series that dealt with the expression of a violent and blind reality. In the lamenter’s series, the bandage became a handkerchief that symbolizes sorrow and loss through the act of covering and hiding; it shows injury even without concretely marking the location of the wound. The handkerchief is reminiscent of ‘The Handkerchief of St. Veronica’ (According to the Book of Saints, Veronica was a devout woman from Jerusalem who gave Jesus her handkerchief so that he could wipe his forehead as he advanced to Golgotha Hill.
Bianca Severijns
Tears in the Rain
In contrast, the movement of the gaze in a selection or group allows us to identify language, chapters, differences alongside connections, and especially allows us to move from the particular, the personal – towards the common denominator. The daily act of sharing is reminiscent of a ‘calligraphic-diary’, and is done in a fixed format, usually on A3 paper in ink and water. “The series of ink sketches started during the first lockdown and became almost a daily practice. The practice of working with wet ink, similar to watercolor technique that gives way to the randomness of the ink spreading on the paper. The drawings are relatively quick and done in one sitting, they require a certain moment of concentration and devotion,
* Tears in the Rain – ״all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain״ A quote from the film ‘Blade Runner’; Roy the replicant’s speech, right before his life cycle concludes.
Maria Merfeld
The objects of the painting are familiar, faces the artist meets on a daily basis, but dealing pictorially with the figure of a close family member is not necessarily simple. The exterior views, nature, and non-family portraits which were central themes in Tubis’ work in the previous decade have made way for personal portraits, a natural segment in the artist’s growth. The painted character (woman / son / daughter) appears on a selected and treated background.
Nadia Adina Rose
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Ilana Efrati
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Anna Milman
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Lida Sharet Masad
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Tal Shochat
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Dalia Fisch Benari
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Rotem Finzi
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Ella Amitay Sadovsky
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Bracha Guy
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Itamar Sagi
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Andi Arnovitz
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Arie Berkowitz
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Gali Cnaani
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
Amalia Frank
“To draw a small line and another line until the shape turns up, sometimes the lines themselves form the rhythm, the beat of the drawing. My paintings are very personal, they are about my mood, my feelings. For me, self-portraits are not about looking in the mirror, they are the sensations I get when I paint what I feel. For example, in the painting ‘Sad Bird’ (1989) I am tired, I have no strength and I see myself as a flightless bird, my feet barely holding on to the ground, my head resting on my arm.”
Text: Adi Angel
דן בירנבוים
רישום
על גבי קיר במבואת הגלריה, מציג האמן והאדריכל דן בירנבוים רישומים נבחרים מתוך עבודות אחרונות. עבודתו הרישומית עסקה בעיקר בתיאור נוף, ישראלי. נופים אשר התעלמו בדרך כלל מנוכחות אנושית. הפעם, נדמה שהאמן מביט אל תוכו. מתוך התנועה המיומנת של מכחול יבש וצבע שחור על נייר, הוא מצליח להעביר אותנו דרך ציור עין, גם אל מה שהעין רואה (העין כמייצגת את המבט, שולחת בעקיפין גם אל דיון פילוסופי עמוק על המבט) [1]. אנחנו חשים את התנועה המתעקלת של היד ורואים את גלגל העין, אישון, דמות שנקלטה במבט. האדמה עליה ניצבים שלושה ברושים (מוטיב ביצירתו וסמל ישראלי) התעגלה באופן בוטח, עד שנדמה שכך יש לציירה. דמות נקלטת בעין, משוכפלת לדמויות רבות ואנחנו מתבוננים ברישום קהל רב של יחידים הנדמים כגופים אורגנים על צלחת פטרי במעבדה. הרישום נכנע לתנועה עגולה, טבעית, כמעט שלמה, שהופכת לבסיס, למקום ממנו נצרבים הדימויים,העין. רישומיו של דן מאופיינים בתחושה דואלית אצל הצופה . תנועת המכחול לצד הקפאת הרגע ונדמה שאנחנו נמצאים על סיפו של דבר מה שיש לבחון אותו שוב. רגע חשוב. הבחירה בטכניקה שהיא כמעט וקליגרפית, יוצרת רגע ציורי, יחידי, מרתק. אלו מתעגלים יחדיו לכדי סממנים חדשים ונוספים ביצירה עשירה, רבת שנים ומרתקת של אמן ישראלי שמצליח לזקק עבודתו כקליגרף יפני, ועם זאת לייצר תחושה מקומית השייכת לכאן ועכשיו.
[1] “הנראה והבלתי נראה” (1964) -מוריס מרלו-פונטי העמיד את הגוף במרכז החוויה התפיסתית של היותנו בעולם. לדעתו, ראייה היא חוויה גופנית, בדרך של דואליות והיפוך: גופי הרואה הוא גם הגוף הנראה על ידי האחר. חוויית היסוד של היותי בעולם היא זו של סובייקט צופה שהוא גם נצפה. גם לאקאן ( 1964, סמינר 11) התייחס להתבוננות: המביט הוא חלק מתמונה רחבה יותר, המבליעה בה את המביט בהיותה כוללת את הצופה שהוא תמיד גם נצפה, ותמיד נמצא גם בשדה המבט של האחר.
Natural Treasures
representations of nature in textiles
Natural Treasures
representations of nature in textiles
28.07.2022 – 14.05.2022
Curators: Efi Gen, Vera Pilpul, Keren Weisshaus
“In the beginning everything was made of textile. People lived in tents, babies were born in textiles, people were buried in textiles, textile was an inseparable part of our lives. Now, it is reintegrating and I believe that it is the material of the twenty-first century and that architecture, transportation, bridges, health, art, design and fashion – everything will be made of textiles of all kinds.”
Over the past two years, we have experienced a dissonance between shutting in and stepping out of lockdowns, between having to wrap ourselves, defending ourselves against the threat of an epidemic, and longing for a soft and comforting touch, an exodus to nature. Textile is essentially a material that envelops and protects the body, creating a buffer between it and the environment. As such, it is a wonderful agent for representing the longings and dilemmas we have all been facing. The textile, for its colors, patterns and textures, simulates and corresponds with nature and its many representations; The flora and fauna, animal skin, vegetation, natural landscapes – all serve as a basis for inspiration, imitation, model creation, decoration, camouflage and also as a source of power and great influence for creators, designers and artists.
The group exhibition, featuring works by 18 artists, aims to offer a position that addresses the tension, as well as the connection between representations of nature and textile, as perceived by them and the way they pour and encode the world of their personal, social images, metaphors and symbolism. The viewer is given the opportunity to examine the image of nature that emerged from this process of research and distillation.
Some of the artists used traditional textile techniques (sewing, embroidery, knitting, etc.), producing simulations of nature that illustrate the space between nature and man-made artifacts. Others utilized the techniques and practices of textile and transferred them to other material worlds (e.g. to lace made of paper, to embroidery in porcelain, or to a rug made of adhesive paper). The works of Maria Merfeld, Amalia Frank, Bianca Severijns, Lida Sharet Masad and Dalia Fisch Benari use a material that replaces the textile while also attempting to resemble it, using a laborious handicraft practice that produces multiplicity, if not excess.
In the case of Yuval Etzioni, Ilana Efrati, Gali Cnaani and Ella Amitay Sadovsky, textiles are actually used in the works, but go beyond their function. In Ilana Efrati’s work it is used as a substrate for actions that accelerate the processes of nature, Yuval Etzioni uses pieces of synthetic grass represented by carpet parts, creating vistas of agricultural fields. For Ella Amitai Sadovsky, the textile produces the landscape and even the domesticated nature, as Gali Canaani deals with fiber and the basic components of textile and weaving. the textile is joined by embroidery as a central practice, and the personal and distinct handwriting of the artist becomes as clear as day in the works of Bracha Guy and Itamar Sagi.
Using wool, Anna Milman created a world that is simultaneously a warm blanket and an up-to-date landscape image of natural and industrialized realms. Andi Arnovitz uses textiles to create a socio-critical statement about ‘cover’ within a gender context. Tal Shochat deals extensively with a dialectical space between the outside and the inside, between nature and the artificial. She detaches a carpet full of ornamentation from its natural location and turns it into the backdrop of a pomegranate-laden tree. In doing so, she creates a dreamy and sublime space, with meticulous aesthetics and abundant beauty.
Nadia Adina Rose poetically uses the soft and homely properties of the textile to reach into an external natural landscape that is linked to personal experiences. Noga Yudkovik Etzioni presents a threatening nature through the creation of ‘second skin’ in fabric. The works of Arie Berkowitz and Rotem Finzi as well as the works of Ella Amitay Sadovsky connect and deal with the meanings, material and physical closeness between humans and animals, woven through these fabrics, telling a narrative that is perhaps a wish, a longing for an imminent, symbolic, emotional connection.
The exhibition presents artistic metamorphoses inspired by the beauty and seduction of nature, through techniques of sewing, embroidery, knitting, weaving as well as new materials that turn textile into a representational, symbolic and researchable site. Is it a pastoral nature? Does it pose a threat, or is it moments before extinction? Is there a romanticization left in the process and in the image itself? or is the textile getting an extreme, colorful, laborious expression, and perhaps nature is free of all these and has withered.
Text: Efi Gen, Vera Pilpul, Keren Weisshaus
Noga Yudkovik Etzioni | Yuval Etzioni | Bianca Severijns | Maria Merfeld | Nadia Adina Rose | Ilana Efrati | Anna Milman | Lida Sharet Masad | Tal Shochat | Dalia Fisch Benari | Rotem Finzi | Ella Amitay Sadovsky | Bracha Guy | Itamar Sagi | Andi Arnovitz | Arie Berkowitz | Gali Cnaani | Amalia Frank
Noga Yudkovik Etzioni
Fermata
Yuval Etzioni
Bianca Severijns
Maria Merfeld
Nadia Adina Rose
Ilana Efrati
Anna Milman
Lida Sharet Masad
Tal Shochat
Dalia Fisch Benari
Rotem Finzi
Ella Amitay Sadovsky
Bracha Guy
Itamar Sagi
Andi Arnovitz
Arie Berkowitz
Gali Cnaani
Amalia Frank
