Participating Artists
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Cornice, 2011 (installation view), painting installation, courtesy of the artist
Roy Mordechay
Roy Mordechay's work is installed at the far end of the hall, in a niche reminiscent of a church apse. His painting is executed partly on the walls and cornice, partly on cut papers, and part of it emerges as drippings of paint on the floor. Mordechay's use of the hall's architecture responds to the history of the mural as part of an architectural structure, and the ecclesiastical association generated by the apse further reinforces the (ironic) link to religious frescos. For, what is, in fact, depicted here? The cornice is painted throughout its breadth with sunset or sunrise colors. A figure cut in paper and watercolored moves across it, back and forth, as if protecting someone or something. Paint trickles on the back wall simulate a curtain, that alludes as well to the need to hide or to cover. Together, all these painting parts spawn a backdrop of a panoramic landscape with an awkward figure and an obscure, yet ritualistic, repetitious occurrence.
The various painterly manifestations and their incorporation into the building render Mordechay's painting three-dimensional, a painting in layers. The view from afar, upon entering, changes as one approaches the end of the hall. The layers are not only physical or optical, but also archaeological: the painting is a mound of painterly options from both the past and the present.
Born in Israel, 1976; lives and works in Tel Aviv
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