Sigal Tsabari
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.
Netta Lieber Sheffer
‘The Lamenters’ Series
The exhibit hall evoked in Netta the association of a chapel. Hence the choice to display the ‘lamenters’ series in this space. The large drawings close in on the viewer and produce a sense of awe that is sometimes associated with sacred spaces. The painted characters are seen as trapped within a world of their own, in need of consolation.
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.
Maya Attoun
Tears in the Rain
The choice to display a seemingly random collection, out of hundreds of ink sketches made in the past two years, allows the viewer another way to experience sketches that Maya Attoun uploads almost daily to Instagram. On social media, we look at one sketch, a single fragment experienced separately.
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.
Alex Tubis
Family
The space features three works painted by Alex over the past year, as well as an earlier self-portrait. The subjects of the paintings are family members. The room in which the works hang is small in comparison, producing an intimate feeling that does well to accommodate family portraits.
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.
Arie Lamdan
‘Bird Man’
The language in which Arie Lamdan draws and speaks is unique. Whole worlds in which reality and dreams intertwine, and words come together to form a picturesque and wonderful story, full of wealth and life.
“I draw in lines, lines have interested me throughout my life, I like to work with thin lines, what attracts me about the thin line is the physical, corporal work.
“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.
Winter Exhibitions
12.02.2022 – 30.04.2022
Sigal Tsabari
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.
Sigal Tsabari’s paintings are evidence of ‘the passing’ in drawing and color, the beauty that carries the independence of place and time. ‘Fermata’ offers the possibility of thinking about reality, or the world of phenomena or images before us, and of pictorial action as an illusion, or as a particular conception of reality.
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.
* Fermata is a musical sign that indicates the lengthening of a note to an indefinite extent. Sigal Tsabari is a musician and an orchestra member, hence the connection between the musical pause / format and a pause in looking at a painting as the title of the exhibition.
Netta Lieber Sheffer
‘The Lamenters’ Series
The exhibit hall evoked in Netta the association of a chapel. Hence the choice to display the ‘lamenters’ series in this space. The large drawings close in on the viewer and produce a sense of awe that is sometimes associated with sacred spaces. The painted characters are seen as trapped within a world of their own, in need of consolation.
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.
Jesus wiped away his sweat and when he returned the handkerchief, his features appeared on it). The assimilation of the image in the folds of the handkerchief is also reminiscent of the properties of paper itself, which imprints a seal. It is a reflection on the formation of an image and on the spirit enacted in the material: the male figures, flesh and blood, imprint themselves in paper which exposes and hides them. The handkerchief is a shelter and a hiding place. It wraps and protects but also eliminates the face. It nullifies them, empties them of the gaze and of the ability to observe and identify them. By the sheer act of covering, the familiar becomes hidden. The protective fabric is deceptive in its honesty, and the hiding of the eyes canals the ability to decipher the gaze.
“I wanted to create a contemporary look at lamentation. An expression of mourning for the shortness of life, the passing youth and missed opportunities. Their gaze, lost in the handkerchief fabric conveys vulnerability, but also blockage and the inability to reach them. Because of the size of the drawing they are perceived as present and powerful, and yet by erasing their faces they return to the white page, to the absence. Instead of lamenting women, the men weep for their role.”
Maya Attoun
Tears in the Rain
The choice to display a seemingly random collection, out of hundreds of ink sketches made in the past two years, allows the viewer another way to experience sketches that Maya Attoun uploads almost daily to Instagram. On social media, we look at one sketch, a single fragment experienced separately.
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, after which I feel as if I’ve just been immersed in water. The product is a drawing of an inner feeling. The drawing in ink is not a painting, it is not spectacular, it is fast, expressive, less controlled, very naked and it is a sort of daily communication with myself. Everything is syntax .. I have a huge database of images that I collect and save through searching on the internet and social networks, and these relate to the gothic, monstrous, animalistic, to the cinema and early-Hollywood glam. In the process I sometimes combine two images and attach a sentence taken from different movie frames. I’m looking for a new connection between image and text, one that evokes an imaginary third image, a bit like looking through the third eye. “
Attoun’s drawings create a world of symbolic connections, mystical, esoteric relations, in which there is an observation of the role of images in life. We encounter archetypal, mythological, philosophical and psychological territories.
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.
Alex Tubis
Family
The space features three works painted by Alex over the past year, as well as an earlier self-portrait. The subjects of the paintings are family members. The room in which the works hang is small in comparison, producing an intimate feeling that does well to accommodate family portraits. 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.
Each portrait receives a different treatment. The chosen body position, sitting or standing, the background and its properties, the connection between the background and the character, the color palette; all carry meanings, layered on top of each other in Alex’s work. The painting holds depth, volume, space and emotional intensity, betraying a warm and pulsating emotion alongside immense loneliness.
Arie Lamdan
‘Bird Man’
The language in which Arie Lamdan draws and speaks is unique. Whole worlds in which reality and dreams intertwine, and words come together to form a picturesque and wonderful story, full of wealth and life.
“I draw in lines, lines have interested me throughout my life, I like to work with thin lines, what attracts me about the thin line is the physical, corporal work. 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.”
Arie began to sketch as a teenager. From then on, he charts everything his eyes see: ‘documentation of life’. The written product is what his eyes have seen, what his mind has remembered or dreamed, and what his heart feels. Animal drawings and their own rhythm that reveal something different each time. Each sketch seems like a self-portrait that offers a momentary observation. Arie creates images that are above reality, but as a ‘bird man’, despite the surprise and irrationality, he leans on reality. His works are humane.
The person at their center. Characters are burdened, pitiful, testifying to the creator’s generous gaze and compassion. Arie often paints the elderly: “Adults, old people, the elderly, their faces are like a book that can be read.”
The exhibition presents drawings that span 40 years of work, from ‘The Cry’ (1982) to ‘The Raiding Ants’ (2021). Arie maintains a unique line. The combination of the lines creates a world.
Text: Adi Angel
