Liat Polotsky, Live Rocks, 2007 watercolors on paper
To Love the Inherently Small – Miniatures 1999-2009
Curator: Irit Salmon
2 Sep — 9 October, 2010
Liat Polotsky’s paintings are miniatures which one must study carefully in order to delve into their essence. The paintings are infused with a unique lyrical quality present in all of the subjects they portray: landscapes and views of Israel, sunrise, sunset, forests and trees or the four seasons. All of these take us on a journey to a magical, colorful world.
Unlike realistic painting, we cannot recognize a specific place in the view before us. This is completely unimportant in Liat’s works, for her points of reference come from the bottom of her heart, the depth of her soul and vast areas of knowledge. These project onto the viewer and carry him away to both different and similar places simultaneously. The realistic, precise paintings of birds are unusual in the exhibition, though painted realistically, with vibrant colors, their backgrounds leave us in an unfamiliar place, a non-specified landscape, possibly originating from an inner world.
Liat gives her paintings names that are seemingly descriptive, like “Jerusalem in Winter,” or “Lake at Sunset”. Upon closer inspection, however, we, the viewers, are taken to another world. Words like ruins, magic, imagination or the contradiction of “living rocks” leave us with an unsettling feeling, preparing ourselves for a paradox: a storm, falling leaves, a kingdom of intriguing opposites, light flowing through many of them. While looking at the paintings we notice an unusual richness of color, unexpected depth and perspective, a feeling of transience, as though we were looking at these landscapes through vast light or mysterious fog, sometimes from great depths.
Square, miniature oil paintings have joined the variety of her body of work. In these paintings, she skillfully achieves a sense of great depth by means of color layering and brush strokes, but at the same time, they do not lose the wonderful transparency that can be seen in the watercolor paintings. It seems that Liat’s art is unique in that way; she does not focus on the realistic details – instead she creates a whole new world with her colors. Liat’s greatness lies in the way she portrays such intense ideas upon such small sizes, successfully communicating great depth and richness.
Irit Salmon