Shulamit Kopf’s new exhibition “Suddenly She Appears” deals with the female figure emerging in an abstract painting right before the viewer’s eyes.
The paintings, in varying formats, are constructed from layers of color, texture, and other materials, with the central and hidden axis being a female figure bearing on her body signs of her struggle to emerge from abstract chaos, the black abyss.
The figures are not prominent and are sometimes difficult to immediately identify. “Suddenly, to my surprise, she is revealed, appears out of nowhere, almost as if by her own will, far from perfect, fighting for her independence from the chaos threatening to drown her,” says Kopf, a regular contributor to The Jerusalem Report.
The exhibition, curated by Arie Berkowitz, opens on March 9, International Women’s Day, and runs in the Tel Aviv Artist House through March 30.
An exhibit about the female image
Kopf paints on unstretched canvases, mostly on the studio floor, with the paintings developing intuitively and spontaneously. She begins each work with a free flow of special thick Japanese black ink that she purchases in an art shop in Paris.
“This transition from pure abstraction to a form of perception where the female figure becomes central is a journey from the unstructured beginnings to a point where something distinct reveals itself,” she says. “Each mark on the canvas records my movement, a moment in time captured in pigment and texture.”
The canvas is rich in textures that can only be seen when one approaches close. In parts of the painting, Kopf exposes the raw fabric, which becomes transparent to light, using a technique she invented. She then emphasizes it by backlighting, creating a multidimensional work.
Kopf‘s art is motivated by constant curiosity, and the question that preoccupies her (she worked for years as a journalist) is: “I wonder what would happen if...”
As a result of such experiments, she creates unique techniques.
The paintings are mostly composed around a central axis. There is a movement that invites the viewer’s eye to approach and wander in non-linear exploration. When the female image is discovered, one can imagine the dance movement of the figure on the painting surface. The lack of a visual anchoring point is a metaphor for life’s unpredictable nature.
“The pictorial abstraction in this collection is influenced by the works of Paul Klee and Israeli artist Mordechai Ardon their formal and spiritual abstraction,” says Berkowitz.
Kopf’s works are meticulous and require perseverance and lengthy work in a variety of textures and scraping to expose the texture of the fabric.
“Her works have aesthetics and beauty alongside the pain and injury of the material, emphasized by illumination reminiscent of human veins and arteries and elements from nature as seen from above,” says Berkowitz.
The current series is a continuation of Kopf’s three-dimensional works exhibited at the Tel Aviv Artist’s House in the past, with the asymmetrical compositions now unfolding in two dimensions after undergoing a transformation of material, color, line, and texture.
Kopf’s works are also on display in Binyenei Ha’uma (International Convention Center) in Jerusalem in the “Folds” wall sculpture exhibition in the Teddy Kollek Hall, curated by Eran Litwin.■