Originated more than 100 years ago, art in Israel develops along with the gradual formation of local life styles and cultural systems. The development of Israeli art shows that the language of contemporary art is global but also individual, usually inspired by various regional environments.
Displaying a panorama of Israeli art, this exhibition presents works by two established Israeli artists, that is, the paintings by Alima Rita and the mixed-media installations by Ruthi Helbitz-Cohen.
Alima is one of the most valued artists and one of the pioneers in printing in Israel. Since the mid 1950s, she intended to represent the appealing fascination of nature with abstract visual expressions. Conveying pure, simple but intense emotions, her abstract paintings have gone beyond common abstract forms. From 2005, Alima began a series of “Black Paintings”, which innovatively combine various visual lexicon of her earlier periods. Employing the powerful “black” masses and concise but expressive forms and signs, her black paintings reveal the essence of nature, arousing our memories of the beautiful landscapes at the same time.
Ruthi’s works explore the contradictory and conflicting nature of the inner world of the human beings, touching on youth, innocence and its loss, sexuality, motherhood and the anxiety it causes. Her works are realized through sheets of tracing paper, scotch tape, fabric softener, coffee grounds, paint, ink and other substances, creating a “mixed media” which should, perhaps more properly, be called “alchemy”. The creative space of the works by Ruthi invites the spectator to enter the shadow of the soul by looking into the spaces created within the transparent human figures, through the layers of paper, as if art has been given another dimension, transparent and penetrable, able to beat the impermeability of ordinary paper or canvas.