Ariela Wertheimer
Before I launch into today's blog we have to welcome a new subscriber- N of Sydney. It's wonderful that our little art community is growing and I do hope that you find the content informative, entertaining, stimulating. Don't forget to send in ideas for us to tackle- especially new artists and new ways of creating works of art.
We are working on creating a search tool for my website so that you can check out past posts. More on that very soon.
And speaking of new- here is a new artist I have recently discovered who is looking at the world in a very different way and creating unique works of art.
Ariela Wertheimer was born in Israel in 1957 and has been drawing and photographing for the past 21 years. Before that, she was an x-ray technician and then a volunteer at Rambam Hospital in Haifa and a military doctor for the Israeli Defense Forces.(jewessmag.com)
Ariela Wertheimer is a multidisciplinary artist...In 2013, Ariela moved from the quiet suburb of Caesarea to the bustling city of Tel Aviv. The city invigorated her with the energy to create, photograph, and paint at an urban rhythm. Fences, construction metals, faces, personal stories of people and neon lights created together a combinations of urban art – a type of pop art which is young and fresh. The pace of the city didn’t frighten her but strengthened her and allowed her to soar to new heights. In 2015, Ariela opened her studio on Kibbutz Galuyot Street in the industrial area of Tel Aviv. (arielawr.com)
As the Jewish New Year has just been celebrated I am first going to bring you some examples from Weitheimer's exhibition titled Skin as there is much in this work that is relevant to welcoming in a new year. Wertheimer explains:
My skin and the skin of the boat are one. The recovery process the boat undergoes in the shipyard, which involves the removal of barnacles that accumulate underneath it hindering its movement, is analogous to my journey in my life; my attempts to scrape and clean parts, expose the wound leaving it devoid of its protective barrier, and allow for the organic process of skin regeneration to take place." Text exhibition (arielawr.com)
The exhibition Skin is composed of four works that are separate parts of a
single journey.
Compiled of about 250 photos of the underside of boats taken at a shipyard in Jaffa, where the barnacles that latch to the boat's bottom, hindering its movement, are scraped off. The scraping and recovery process – the journey of the boat until it is seaworthy again – is parallel to my life: events, experiences, the barnacles I gathered and the need to remove and scrape off the ones that hold me back. The video images merge and shift in a meditative rhythm, accompanied by a soundtrack that touches deep inside, in step with one's breathing, lingering at the edge of the consciousness.
If you follow this link you can watch the changes in colour and texture on the Skins.
Ariela uses paint, ropes, wood, ties, and a variety of other materials and mixed mediums in her projects. Her rope series, for example, was composed of photographs of ropes and fish nets at the Jaffa Port, which were printed on canvas with acrylic paint. (jewessmag.com)
Light Boxes
In 2016, Wertheimer opened an exclusive exhibition at the Farkash Gallery called The Freedom to Let Go Light Boxes.
I highly recommend you watch the short video below in which Wertheimer shows and explains her Light Boxes. You might also like to take a closer view of the works as the Farkash Gallery.
In May 2017, Ariela exhibited in the Vienna Biennale in Venice at the Palazzo Mora hosted by the European Cultural Center. Read more about it in Written in the skin: Ariella Wertheimer at a solo show in Venice.
If this style of art work interests you please take time to visit the website of Ariel Wertheimer.