Together Alone – Eti Goren and Raya Stern

Curator: Einav Baranes Eliasov

Opening: Thursday 16/7/20 from 19:30

Closing: Saturday 29/08/20 at 14:00

Gallery Talk: Friday, 28/08/20, first session at 10:00, second session 11:00, third session 12:00, fourth session 13:00. For registration

Eti Goren and Raya Stern are two potters that first met in 1985 in Tel Aviv when fixing a gas kiln.  From this developed a unique relationship based on a mutual friendship and a deep love of clay and pottery.

Goren makes functional vessels placing emphasis on functionality making the eating and drinking experience a “celebration”. As a philosophy and way of life she makes her own materials giving her independence and an added depth to the unending research of materials.  In her words: “materials disclose secrets and surprises”.  Growing up next to her home was a stable of donkeys where she played.  The image of the donkey has been with her over the years as a first childhood love.  Years later she reconnected to this through the paintings of Nahum Gutman and now draws donkeys on her cups where they sit and make each one a unique piece.

Stern regards herself as a functional potter and her tool is the wheel where the rhythm and rotation draw her in.  She makes minimalist, clean forms where the surface exposes the movement of her fingers working the pot.  She rarely uses tools to intensify the traces of her hands and is concerned with developing the color of her pots inspired by nature and her childhood on Kibbutz Sdot Yam. From her student days in Australia she has specialized in firings with a flame,  vulnerable to the process, the unique and spontaneous result of each pot, learning from each firing and gaining insight from the colors influenced by the flames on the clay and the dialog between the vessels as they are placed in the kiln.

Stern has specialized in Arab Luster, a technique developed in Egypt in the ninth century.  This decorative and firing technique is based on pigments that create great variety in the luster depending on the angle of vision.  The beautiful, one-off results are what attract Stern and connect her to a local tradition of the Middle East. The unending improvisation and research of the materials give her a unique language of purpose and serendipity.

The exhibition exposes a special relationship between two women, brilliant potters, who create and live their life choices one beside the other in a “micro kibbutz” of their own in south Tel Aviv where each has developed a ceramic language.  Their relationship that developed over the years led them to purchase a property together where they established their joint studio and at the same time have maintained their private living space considerate of each other.