Rose Bar-Nur is a well-known Israeli artist who teaches architecture and design. Her wonderful work is currently being exhibited at the Global Art Gallery in Tel Aviv from May 21 to June 22, titled “Concrete Singing and Other Birds.”
Born in Lviv, Ukraine, 62 years ago, Bar-Nur immigrated to Israel at 13 with her parents. She says that the beauty of her hometown – one of the architectural pearls of Europe between the 17th and 20th century – impressed her as a child and left her with a love of Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo artistic styles.
“As a baby, I was enchanted by the sound of a pencil on paper,” she says. “At four, I was impressed by the paintings of fairy tales on the walls of the garden and decided that when I grew up, I would draw all the fairy tales. That was the beginning of my romance with the world of painting – endless pencil sketches on paper. Throughout the years the topics changed, but the desire for painting did not falter. I dive into the world of art and try different techniques in order to create and enrich my repertoire of means of expression.”
Diving into the world of art
As to the action of painting, Bar-Nur says: “A day’s work opposite the canvas in the studio is no different from a working day. Usually I prepare myself the night before and decide what I’ll do the next day. At all times, I discover something new about the medium, the technique, art and myself, the manner in which I clutch the brush and wave it, while combining and mixing the colors and holding an internal, spiritual dialogue with myself. The crucial stage of the work is the beginning. Before I touch the paper or canvas, I read material and delve into an issue. Afterwards, I proceed to the planning stage, the desired composition, the color palette and the textures. Only then, after completing the planning stage, do I approach the canvas.”
As an artist and architect, Bar-Nur addresses in her work concepts of architecture, with her inspired use of the pencil and brilliant exploitation of all its possibilities. At first the image is created by sketching, underlining the line that created the form. This line will continue to develop into a metaphor or image. The volume is often gained by the use of color or by inspired use of black and white, light and shade. Thus a clear, structured, emotional – yet mysterious – line is created, expressing a clear, strong artistic comment. This comment is drawn from her past memories and knowledge of the future. Bar-Nur is the source of the line, black on white, white on black, an unlimited line that expresses all emotions and all shades. The line is carried out in space, digging into the soul’s depths – poetic, mystifying, touching.
In her works, images and structures ingrained in reality are created and born again on the canvas or paper. The images deceive, being both realistic and non-realistic, existing on the border between imagination and reality, light and shade, structured and hazy forms, between clear lines and colored surfaces, the constructed and disassembled, illusions and reality, and the conscious and subconscious. With her unique handwriting, Bar-Nur leads the viewer to an emotional, personal journey, where emotions and thoughts are mixed. A journey amid spaces, worlds, memories, the present and the future, the individual and society, the whole and the pieces. The viewer wanders between levels of reality, different events and different eras, and is exposed to a strange and foreign beauty that simultaneously seems close and familiar. The images reflecting from her works do not belong to a specific time or place. They reflect universal feelings of yearning, fear of the unknown, astonishment, and the sense of understanding that human beings are only a tiny part of the universe. A new reality is created on the canvas, full of vital beauty and aesthetic joy, with time losing all meaning. The viewer surrenders to looking at the present, as well as yearning for the past and thinking of the future.■
The Global Art Gallery is located at 13 Merkaz Ba’alei Melaha St., Tel Aviv-Jaffa. The writer is curator of the exhibition.