Ruth Nemet “Young Samaritans”
Opening: Wednesday, 17 September 2014, 6–10 pm
Exhibition: 18 September – 8 November 2014
BQ is delighted to present “Young Samaritans”, the first solo exhibition with the Israeli artist Ruth Nemet (born 1977 in Tel Aviv, lives and works in Los Angeles).
Ruth Nemet mainly works with the media painting and photography. Though, her artworks are nothing like mere representations of objective reality. On the contrary, they seem to picture what usually remains invisible to the factual point of view and what is revealed only in fugacious moments of a dream or of precarious mystic experience. This is especially true for her new body of works, “Young Samaritans”; delicately and translucently painted oil portraits on nature photographs that represent details of water flowing over rocks. The manifold vortices, streamlets, waves and sunlight reflexes that float over the rocks dissolve the photographic reproduction of nature into a formless, impressionist image of volatile speckles of colour, at the same time provoking involuntary images in the beholder. These suggestive photographs provide the background for portraits that emerge ghastly as ephemeral apparitions, like fossils or revenants from the past, evoking a hidden meaning that manifests in nature. The depicted persons – either politicians, scientists, or Samaritans, members of ancient ethno-religious group from Mt. Gerizim, Palestine, who according to their tradition, survived the Assyrian Exile in 721 BC and have preserved not only the religion and rites of the ancient Israelites but also their own version of the old Hebrew alphabet – allude to an eternal mystical relationship between the subject, nature, society and history.
“Young Samaritans” will be on display until 8th of November 2014 at BQ’s showroom Upstairs in the rear building of the gallery. A catalogue including a text by Ory Dessau is published on the occasion of the exhibition.
