My Paintings are About Human Beings, Politics, Sociality and Nature Unbound.

I look at the world and the world looks right back at me!

You know how you see something, stop, take a second look and then…begin to discern something else, something deeper maybe? Well, my paintings have that feeling, that certain something that you can’t quite put your finger on. Hidden in the folds and creases of material and paint, are things that you cannot put a name to. There may be secrets (and their purging or their perpetuation.) There is a clash of worlds amidst a multitude of glimpses, an explosion of conflicting forces, a ripple of moods. There is imbalance in the gestalt, paradoxes abound, an uneasy ceasefire of the senses unleashed. It’s enough to “feel” the reflection in a looking glass, to see the tension between two juxtaposed figures, to appreciate the negative space, to hear the beating of a hawk’s wings to know that a world of strong emotions and “canned” heat is just beyond the open window.

My paintings are about human beings, politics, sociality and Nature unbound. All people (educated or not, intellectual or not) can and will react and instinctively comprehend these elemental structures. As in Nature, structure and form is in everything, but by disassembling and disrupting it, we are forced to look differently at our own vision of reality.

In one way or another, my art work is always composed of a multitude of glimpses. What appears solid, contains a hint of displacement and timelessness. Success of the painting depends on how the marks, brushstrokes and stains of paint interact with each other. A hard-edged outline can both contain and invite the eye into the picture. Elaborate strokes and dabs, heighten the decorative and (at the same time) can also attack complacency! Sentimentality is avoided and repetition (sometimes in registers or grids) abstracts the image. A rhythm and language of images are born, coalesce, and cohere to depict a single form. Some paintings hang loose, like flags – torn, battered, weathered and creased – highlighting and emphasizing both internal and external conflict. Other works on stretched canvas, lend themselves to a quieter, more analytical approach.

Colour and tonality are key elements and I exploit them to create (what I would term) a “push and pull” effect. On the one hand, the viewer is drawn into the work and then, paradoxically, repelled outwards at the same time. Vibrancy and contradiction are played out with colour, line and form, confounding our emotional reaction, but whetting our appetite! Here, hard-edged and free-form, decorative embellishments versus the expressive and abstract, all come into play. I strongly believe that these apparent contradictions succeed in confounding the senses of reason and encourage the viewer to question, to delve, to penetrate the polychrome layers…… in short to EXPLORE.

LIFE IS A STRING OF IMAGES – CONFLICT AND HARMONY, THE BEAUTIFUL, THE PAINFUL, THE SERENE, THE VIOLENT. MY FERVENT WISH IS THAT THE VIEWER WILL FEEL THE DESIRE TO DELVE DEEPER, TO ASK QUESTIONS AND MAYBE COME TO REALISE THAT NOT ALWAYS ARE THERE CLEARLY DEFINED ANSWERS.

I wish to expose the vulnerability of undiluted emotion and break the cultural surface tension.

DAVID BEN-AMI