The candles have been lit, the incense has been burnt; now my work vibrates inside of Berlin art gallery CIRCLE1 until December 23rd. Thanks to Avi Pitchon, who invited me to take part in this group exhibition, alongside renown international artists from Israel and Palestine!
What started as a simple idea years ago, has accumulated into a complex installation. Succeeding years of studying the plants first-hand and a rediscovered love for ink, suddenly things fell into place. It was preceded by searching and researching, sowing and growing, loss and gain via the very basic and earth-bound occupation as a gardener and harvester.
The installation is hence titled “Harvest“. It consists of an earth altar with dried plants and harvest related offerings: self baked bread, honey from the neighborhood and self-made beeswax candles. The souls and spirits that were contained in the once alive, now dead corpora of the plants, find a new house in the form of fetishistic ink drawings: the “Sigilla Magica” series.
With these new forms I found an own language, in which I seek to both entertain and communicate memes to the viewer. Twelve ink drawings reference eleven magical plants. A twelfth refers to the bee queen, “Regina Bombina“, governing the vital interaction between plants and pollinators. In addition, two anthropomorphic drawings depict the aconite and mandragora in half-human form, namely the armed and poison-dart struck “Wolf Shaman” and beheaded and re-headed “Regina Amandrakina” accompanied by her freakish offspring. Finally, two complimenting botanical studies of the roots of the aconite and mandragora act as a bridge between abstraction and realism and explore the individual and fascinating shape of each in detail.
Scroll down for impressions from the vernissage.
Thanks to all involved!
17.11.-23.12.2017 – Bad Intentions,
a group exhibition curated by Avi Pitchon and Alona Harpaz
Opening times:
Thursday – Saturday
12:00-18:00
CIRCLE1Mittenwalder Straße 47
10961 Berlin
November 25, 2017
Tags: vernissage, planta magica, installation, art, ink drawings, magical plants, avi pitchon, plant mythology, israeli artists, wolf shaman, palestinian artists, exhibitions, regina bombina, poisonous plants, exhibition opening, experimental art, sigilla magica plantarum, gallery, conceptual art, harvest, circle 1, plant art, berlin, regina amandrakina