- Congregation Beth El–Keser Israel
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
The Letter, painting by Doron Wolf
The history of art invades and merges with private life in the paintings of Doron Wolf, which explore contemporary spaces of domesticity through the lens of timeless masterpieces of art history. Each work is a composite of several images, some of them taken from life and others sourced online. Some paintings pay homage to works found in art books or magazines, others use effects of lighting and motifs reminiscent of the old masters from the Renaissance onward, but drawn from contemporary life. Cell phones and computer screens perform functions that windows once performed for Rembrandt van Rijn and Vermeer, and indeed, sometimes mirrors perform the same function they had in the works of Diego Velasquez and Jan van Eyck.
Another way in which references to masterpieces disturb and animate Wolf’s paintings is in the way his paintings utilize the interplay of gazes within their borders and between their surfaces and the viewer. Figures in the paintings – including animals – often stare at the viewer. Just as often, however, they look so intently into their computers that they seem not to notice one another or the viewer. Sometimes different kinds and directions of gazes occur within one painting, and sometimes the gaze of the mirror overcomes them all and seems to comment on the nature of the gaze itself. Is it natural or is it artificial?
Concentrating on figurative work, and specifically on figures inhabiting a – mostly – interior space, Wolf strives for a realistic style. But by confronting these figures with analogues in iconic Western painting, often accompanying them with open books of relevant classic paintings or other representations of masterpieces, and playing with the convergence or divergence of gazes, Wolf hopes to raise questions about artistic originality and to explore the language of the world. For the viewer, his works put us in mind of the enriching, yet skeptical, role that images play in the way we envision our domestic lives and ourselves.
In addition to the paintings, Beki is also exhibiting a selection of Wolf’s landscape etchings.
Doron Wolf, an Israeli artist residing in Hamden, Connecticut, USA, hails from Nahalal, Israel. He received a B.E.D. from Oranim College Art Institute, and his M.F.A. from Haifa University, both in Israel. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Haifa Museum of Art, The Negev Museum of Art, the Jezreel Valley Museum, and the Janco Dada Museum at Ein Hod, among others, as well as solo exhibitions, including one forthcoming at Petach Tikva Museum of Art.
more information and images on the artist’s website
https://www.doron-wolf.com
