BFA Exhibition
07/2010 -Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem
3rd floor, Department: Fine Arts B.F.A
Curator: Drora Domini
Head of the Fine Arts Department: Ido Barel
For my BFA exhibition I presented a mural installation. During my final year of Art-school I started to develop an interest in painting that couldn't be documented by regular photography (Documentation with long exposure photography requires a tripod). At the same time, my painting changed from index like accuracy in a vivid colour scheme - to a sketch like markings that uses a single colour with the base and material as well as technique creating the texture which creates the tonality. My imagery accumulated into a collection of recurring symbols and signs that were stitched together with richness in details to form an amorphic symmetric shape. My aim was to delay the viewer’s gaze over the imagery for the longest time.
I was working intuitively, guided by private emotion yet with conceptual logic. Much of that absurd logic is taken from 1960’s cults, especially one led by Charles Manson, I was also influenced by Giallo horror films, set design of SciFi and fantasy movies of the 1960-90’s in a pre computer era when everything was hand made. Living in Jerusalem, the city that is unbelievably charged with cultural history and political tension also originated the unusual mental illness known as Jerusalem Syndrome . Specific sites in Jerusalem I used as inspiration are: The Hansen House , Clal Building , Mamilla Cemetery (a Muslim cemetery from the Mamluk period) and The Bible Lands Museum (Archeology museum).
I’ve used monotheistic symbols, sculls, crystals and versions of the flower of life. Attempting to create moments where feelings of shock and horror are overlapping comedy and entrainment. I tried to create an environment that speaks of the artificial and non authentic-imitation, something hybrid. In-between teenage graffiti, Neanderthal cave paintings and a set for an horror Alien abduction B movie. Interested in the fantasy of a fascinating moment of a possible disappointing meeting of a real close encounter with the unfamiliar culture in another time and place.
More than anything else, what led me toward this installation was that I began using light-reflecting materials in my practice and different techniques which "disturb" the ability to catch the image from first glance. I wanted to create an entire new piece based on works I did throughout the year instead of “curating” myself and exhibit fragments in a space. I used an overhead projector with hand drawn Permanent marker on transparent paper. The paint I used was an industrial acrylic based paint used for basements- that is a white paint mixed with glowing powder that soaks up light and basically projects it back until it’s done .The process was "white on white": a blind work that it's outcome was revealed in the end. The room’s fluorescent lights were timed to turn off/on every 15 minutes. During the timeframe the paintings glowed fully and in time gradually disappeared into the darkness to the point of near complete darkness the light turned on again.
The idea was to generate a disappearing effect of an exhibition appearing out of nothing and vanishing into thin air.
Photos by : Bar Faber