Gift Shop

Addressing the body’s disintegration and decay, Sapir Gal raises questions about time and the preservation of memory. The exhibition Souvenir Shop consists of a series of oil paintings and a series of drawings on paper, depicting various objects, some organic, such as fossils and amber, and others synthetic, such as soaps. Through her painterly subjects, Gal highlights the dichotomy at the heart of the act of conservation, which simultaneously attests to presence and its termination, just as fossils and amber conceal a life that is no longer, thus constituting a capsule that holds both vitality and death.

Gal draws inspiration from the vanitas (vanity) and memento mori (remember death) traditions, which center on transience and death. Her works also strive for precision and symmetry, beauty and the sublime, thus creating a tension between the scrupulous aesthetics and their subject matter.