Times in Acrylic and Oil
Natalia Zourabova / Times in
Opening: 09/02/2012 Closing: 15/03/2012
My new exhibition, “Times in Acrylic and Oil” reveals achievements in painting and drawing distinctive from my last period of work. The essence of the exhibition communicates the continuous moment of observing nature and space and the appreciation of the perpetual presence.
The work refers to the Israeli motif; today’s human life, its surroundings and its products. All my works are inspired by the people and landscapes in my local habitat, specifically in the Tel Aviv area and the Negev desert where I use to live and work. I found these new elements stimulating from the day I immigrated to Israel years ago. These paintings touch on memory, of what has been seen, lived and experienced. They are paintings about the present and emphasize the thrill of being in the moment. They are a celebration of timelessness.
The name of the exhibition refers to the technical foundations of the painting, the materials which I have consciously chosen to work with during the last few years. The choice of material (acrylic and oil) is essential and has contributed to the arrival of my conclusion: which specific language and material will direct me to the objective.
The Acrylic period is based on my digital, computer drawings taken from personal memories. They show the static, almost plastic, gigantic and story filled world that is closed from the inside. The Oil period is based on sketches from nature and aims to develop a new visual language in which there is a return to subjectively human ways of looking and picturing the world. This new period refers to unconscious knowledge and direct emotions that one experiences from the observation of nature.
Within this process I found myself working on elongated formats, suggestive of cinema screens or sheets of infinite papyrus which ancient people used in order to write texts that could be unrolled further and further. My choices in technique of lines, hatching, stains together with the very narrow arsenal of colors, almost all primary colors: yellow, red, orange, blue, green, and violet, is reminiscent of the simplicity or almost childish method of drawing by felt-tip pens. These works are less verbal than the Acrylic works. They are the result of describing the world in a million yet very simple signs and symbols.