Do or die / Eva Avidar

Curator: Dalia Manor

Opening: Thursday 5/1/23, 19:00

Gallery talk at benyemini center: Saturday, 21/1/23 at 11:30

Online gallery talk: Wednesday, 22/2/23, 19:30 – For registration

Closing: Saturday 25/2/23, 14:00

The exhibition of new works by Eva Avidar is unexpected.  Over the years Avidar has been identified with figurative sculpture but in the past few years she has devoted herself to new materials and subject matter.  The connection between the human body and the world of nature that characterized her earlier works takes a new angle.

A group of works relate to dried plants made from clay, epoxy, and gold leaf.  Avidar gathers simple wild plants that have withered, desert plants that are dried, dead, and completed their life cycle and makes them the basis for her new creativity.  She starts out wrapping them in clay and firing them which causes them to explode in the firing.  From the shards she creates new forms that preserve the essence of the plant but with a different appearance.  “Perhaps this expresses the way in which I experience life” says Avidar “expecting a catastrophe that will shatter existing structures and compel reconstruction.”

Another series created this year is made of plaster mixed with pigments hung as a relief on the wall.  The abstract, mysterious shapes formed as the liquid plaster poured in the space between her legs spreads and hardens beyond the limits of the body.  Unexpected effects the way it spread, the changes in color, reflects the artists letting go to chance and processes of chemistry and physics. These works follow a series of small works of body casts that Eva Avidar researched during a summer residency at the “Mifal” gallery in Jerusalem.

Eva Avidar (b. 1960 Transylvania, Rumania) is a sculptor who has an affinity to working with clay.  In the 1980’s she completed her first degree in the Ceramic Department of Bezalel and in the 90’s was awarded the prestigious Chlore foundation scholarship to study at the Royal College in London. Since 1989 she has taught at Bezalel, the Midrasha Beit Berl, and for many years at the Emunah College in Jerusalem.  She has won many prizes and scholarships including a residency at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia in 2006.

Since 1990 Avidar has exhibited in solo exhibitions in public and private museums and galleries, including the Herzlia Museum, Beit Cahana, Gallery at Kibbutz Nachshon, Shay Arye Gallery, BY5 in Tel Aviv as well as in group exhibitions in Israel and in Europe.  In 2019 after a break of 10 years, Eva Avidar returned to creating.  She joined the teaching staff at the Benyamini Center and is now invited to present her solo show.