I have Come into My Garden | Exhibition in the 25th Nidbach Series

I have Come into My Garden: Home-Seeking Painting

More than a mere work of art, Iris Ahuva Pykovski’s painting “seeks a home”—not a physical dwelling, but a place of spiritual rest, a home that is a profound secret (sod). In the painting evoking the “house,” it appears to land in one piece, like a spacecraft descending from higher realms into the mundane world, forging a new, entrancing hybrid.

The exhibition’s title, “I have Come into My Garden,” is drawn from the Song of Songs (5:1). Just as the biblical poet’s garden symbolizes King Solomon’s beloved, so, too, for Pykovski the garden is not merely a physical place, but the embodiment of a place residing in what the artist calls the “spiritual heart,” a metaphysical realm beyond time.

Pykovski’s biography traces a compelling journey of search and discovery across continents, probing questions of identity. At times, she felt she had arrived—only to continue her wandering inquiries. Today, her latest stop in the journey is the world of painting, as a recent graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design’s Haredi Branch. Though not young in age, she is a young artist at the outset of her professional path, who now joins the “Nidbach” project at the Jerusalem Artists’ House, featuring emerging artists, recent graduates of Israeli art schools.

Pykovski’s painting is a struggle between essence and the constraints of the material. At times, the colors layer themselves over earlier, erased attempts, like memories of worlds that once existed. This process mirrors her life: the past does not vanish, but rather gains momentum, becoming inseparable from what is now unfolding.

Pykovski’s artistic process is not always one of rest, but it is a world summoned to be dwelled in. In its magical moments, peacocks, gazelles, snowy peaks, trees, temples, and sparks of refracted sunbeams reveal themselves, sometimes rendered with meticulous care, elsewhere with a freer hand.

The highlight of the journey is still ahead of her—in refining a fully formed painterly language and finding the moment of peace and quiet for which she so deeply longs.

Shai Azoulay

Events in the exhibition:

Thursday 28.8.25, at 4pm |  second exhibition opening

Thursday 18.9.25, at 5pm | Gallery talk with the artist Iris Ahuva Pykovski and the curator Shai Azoulay

Tuesday 21.10.25, at 5pm |  Gallery talk with the artist Iris Ahuva Pykovski and the curator Shai Azoulay