Jerusalem Faces and Places

About the Exhibition

Jerusalem is the main theme of Rifkah’s work. She paints the real and physical city by observing her subjects over extended periods. Her paintings are honest, intimate and caring studies of what is going on in particular settings at the present time.Rifkah documents the changes Jerusalem is going through: taking down the old and building the new. She also expresses her love for this city’s special and unusual aspects: its intimacy, everyday life in the small old neighborhoods, as well as abandoned objects, rubbish and poverty.
This exhibition features selected works from two series of paintings: “In the Mahane Yehuda Market (the shuk) and Aggripas Street” and “At the Beit Frankforter Day Centre for the Elderly” in the Baka neighborhood.
These paintings deal with people, their environment, and the relation between them. Sometimes the figures are “swallowed up” by their surroundings, and sometimes they are at the centre of prosaic everyday dramas. These paintings do not present beautified or manneristic images. They are rich and crammed with details, both in terms of color and material. It is possible to detect the influences of artists such as Pissaro and Bonnard: drawing inspiration from the subject she is painting, Rifkah translates it into light, color and movement. Her paintings are alive and convey a feeling of truth rather than being totally faithful to reality, with every detail playing its part in the scene.