Anat
Rozenson Ben-Hur (b. 1979), an artist specializing in painting and a lecturer
on
art, lives and works in the Golan Heights, Israel. Holds a BFA from the
Department
of Fine Art, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (2005)
and
an MFA from the Department of Fine Arts, University of Haifa (2016).
The
works addresses the concept of home-its essence, yearning thereto, its force as
well as the challenges it poses for
me
as a woman and a mother. At the same time, the show also sets out to decipher
the tension between the physical space
of
the house, and its existence in mental realms.
In my works I delve,
primarily, into the domestic space, from a contemporary feminine
vantage
point. I am interested in the concept of “place,” both as an external sphere
which
corresponds with nature, the environment, and society, and as an internal,
private-intimate
sphere reflected in one’s psyche; home as a locus that inspires the
individual
with a sense of belonging and security, and at the same time—a structure
that
requires maintenance and intense work to preserve it as such. It is a place
that
absorbs human energies and a mundane routine, which remains etched in
the
“spirit” of the house as a testimony, even at times of physical human absence.
the
woman in my works represents the gap between the
concepts
of freedom and subordination. Her figure conveys an interplay between
the
Sisyphean, arduous work filling a woman’s life and the modern illusion that all
fields
are open to women. The search for purpose and the meaning of the Sisyphean
labor
involved in “maintaining” all aspects of the household is translated in my
paintings
into the painterly act itself, which symbolizes the fine relations among the
diverse
tensions in different areas of life, alongside the intricacy of the aforesaid
intrinsic
and extrinsic realms.
the
works depict various domestic scenes which are intertwined on the painterly
surface,
weaving a new setting subject to interpretation. Ranging from flattening
to
depth, the images spawn a new, original narrative, eliciting quandaries about
the
painterly and thematic distinction between the wheat and the chaff.
