Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic and author based in Los Angeles. Her fine art & design reviews and features have appeared in more than twenty publications. She is currently the LA Managing Editor at Flavorpill.net and a Contributing Editor at Arkrush.com, Artweek and Art Ltd.
Liat Yossifor was born in Israel and although she now lives and works in Los Angeles, the complex political and cultural milieu of her homeland continues to inform her artistic practice. Being born in an ancient land blessed with stunning vistas and replete with religious symbolism yet perpetually on the verge of being torn apart by violence, Yossifor is on intimate terms with paradox. Her thickly scored, richly hewn landscapes and portraits draw equally on conventions of history painting and abstract expressionism; using a unique wet-on-wet oil technique, she engineers an electrifying tension between the figurative and non-representational elements of her compositions. Her portraits of casually styled modern individuals hearken back to the 18th and 19th century paintings of military heroes in their confrontational stances of strength and power; yet by employing monochrome palettes of either steely gray, iridescent white or smoky damask rose, she locates the drama in the painted surfaces and abstract passages rather than the specifics of the subject. The flesh of faces, the tendrils of hair, and the thick atmospheres of her indeterminate settings all cohere into continuous viscous, visceral patterns.
Her landscapes expound further on the notion of correspondences, relating not only the abstract to the figurative, but the body to the earth. Her rolling hills, echoing dunes and shadowy crevices have both a macro and micro formal relationship to the deracinated limbs and bruised torsos of the combatants that inhabit them—the coagulating surfaces of her paintings are blood-soaked battlefields—but ultimately the sensual pleasure available in her dynamic surfaces wins the day.
Wow! You're assuming a lot about this woman's art and political stance based solely on her birthplace. In so doing, you fail to see the limitless levels of complexity that this art tackles. There's nothing in her work that is geographically specific, therefore assuming it's depicting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only is very telling of a limited ability to view art. I understand your criticism about Israeli artists filtering war through an abstract lens; however, if her nationality weren't listed in her bio or in the critique above, I highly doubt your criticism would remain the same. To me, the rich textures of the work exhibit a highly refined technique seldom seen in contemporary oil painters. Also, the notion that two alike soldiers are fighting each other speaks volumes: is there mutiny in the ranks (well documented amongst American soldiers currently serving in Iraq); or is it the idea that every soldier is the same once they don a uniform? To trade in these possibilities (in addition to countless others) for a simple-minded view about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to deprive oneself of the vast emotional possibilities this work can evoke.
Nice. It's always rewarding to see descriptions of art that avoid the complex reality of a place in particular, and the people that suffer there, for something empty and vague. Well done. Apparently Israelis and their art don't see any Palestinians but solely vague, abstract relations to nameless "combatants." How is it that Israeli artists can't speak outside of empty formalist, minimalist, abstract gestures. Why so scared of a voice?
And then the images, representing "abstract" and "combatants" as if to erase the guilt of thinking what power, what state, what occupatoin, as if relations are so mythic, like nature, like that "ancient, religious landscape" the text slyly suggests is but Israel's to view, as there is no neighbor even mentioned in contention.
The "fight" in Abstract expressionism was quickly used by the O.S.S. in tours to prove "freedom" exists in America. This art would fit well into the comfortable Israeli museum, compared to the actualities that exist all around. Well done.
