In Light of the Situation

The search for the uniqueness of each situation is what fascinates me. Translating the singularity of an illusive experience may be very complex.

I work directly from life to gain immediacy of impact and to maximize the information I can glean from the subject. The basic formal building blocks of any two-dimensional work must certainly be present, such as: composition, color relationships, light and shadow, perspective, format etc. Beyond that, many other factors may be taken into account, such as: time of day, season, temperature, atmosphere, space, mood, rhythm. The list goes on.

These works comprise my efforts to pin down a sense of a specific isolated minute. I may use varying avenues of expression to get there. I explore whatever means I have at my disposal, whether in the very briefest of thumbnail sketches or in much more sustained works. I work both methodically and expressively, thoughtfully as well as hurried, and by both direct painting and indirect painting methods. Whatever works in getting closer to the mark

A few of these works are autobiographical. The series of self-portraits through the cracked mirror, are for me, evocative of the shattered glass of Kristalnacht. As a daughter of Holocaust survivors, the shattering of my parents’ world always carried over into my world, and unavoidably formulated part of who I am. Through an ubiquitous plastic mirror, that fissure of their lost world is reflected in my present.

Similarly, “A Pair of Hybrids,” summarizes the immigrant experience, for me. It records the sense of never belonging either here or there, neither being wholly this or that. The melding together of the former world to the new reality results in a quintessentially different form.

The Jaffa Road series also carries a personal viewpoint. This thoroughfare, well over a hundred years old, bears the scars of daily life. Though it is probably the most overlooked of Jerusalem’s vistas, I sense a certain nobility in the seediness of this central Jerusalem artery, which I try to record.

A number of the works are painted on a surface made from a local material. They are painted in oil on wood panels with a gesso mix formulated from the dust of Jerusalem stone. This surface is reminiscent of fresco painting in effect, yet differs in that it is a wet on dry technique, rather than a wet on wet technique. This material brings richness to the paint, allowing the understrokes and overstrokes to form a delicate web of the painting’s history of thin glazes.