Elie Cohen– Graduate of Tel Hai Arts Institute, 2017-2021
Name of work: Childhood landscape
About the work: The distance from my childhood home led me to create this work. I was born and raised on Kibbutz Yotvata in the southern Arava, where the land is bare of any decoration. The powerful and breath-taking landscape, loaded with quiet and peacefulness, with endless colors were my inspiration to remember and make present my feeling of belonging and home.
I chose bottles as the ground for the project. Making them required concentration, patience and sensitivity and to be present in the moment. This was always my feeling on the kibbutz. I worked with slip that reminded me of the consistency of the sandstone from this area – a combination of rough, soft and rigid. I used a variety of glazes to create an effect of flow, harmony and variety, to create depth like in the Arava desert. The tall bottles with the long thin necks give a feeling of proud nobility, the feeling of warmth and home, like the mountains that surrounded me as a child.
Technique: wheel thrown, sprayed glaze, electric fired to 1220 deg. C
