In this first painting installation, large unstretched scrolls of paintings created a three-dimensional, overlapping experience for the viewing audience to step into. The scrolls were spread all over the gallery's space, covering it from floor to ceiling.
Instead of offering an ordinary experience of standing still in front of a painting, the viewers are invited to step into a painting and immerse in a multi-senses experience that presents the process and duration of the art making as part of the final outcome.
The idea of memory is evidently present in the works of Rotem Reshef. Like memory, they too are full of remnants, images from life, experiences and emotions. Reshef creates imprints on the surface of the canvas using plants, plastic sheets and pieces of wood that she submerges in diluted paint. Later she peels off the materials, leaving faint imprints that are both a testimony of the materials that created them, yet stand alone as a new and enigmatic image.
Ghost Library #32, 2018 | 40x225in | 100x570cm | quadriptych | Installation View
Her Libraries are an illusion; her books are made of pieces of wood and cardboard. A longer observation might reveal that the libraries also resemble the skyline of a city and that the round shapes that float between the shelves take the form of moons and suns in a futuristic age. Reshef is creating a new world and the absence turns into a new creation of real substance. Reshef’s creating process is playing a significant part in her art. Chance and accident, and the tension between the instinct to control and the wish to let go, are among her most vital working tools. Reshef relinquishes her control and allows the materials to dictate the outcome. While her works may seem static, as they are depict the imprint of objects once submerged and restrained in paint, in reality the paintings are full of rhythm and movement that brings to life the universe that Reshef creates.
Rotem Reshef, is a process-based action and installation artist who calls both New York and Tel Aviv home. Her work includes a range of techniques – peeling, pouring, combining natural and artificial sources and materials that shape various compositions on different canvases. Rotem’s art deals with traces of human presence versus the appearance and disappearance of nature: seasonal changes, the impact and influence of color, tone and shade on our emotions and perceptions. Join us for a fascinating conversation with this very talented and creative artist.