Land
E
scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
E sther Cohen Lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel
An artist's statement
M
y paintings are inspired by rituals, narratives and cultural aspects evolving the relationship between the wild and the man-made. The drawings portray a deep rooted contemporary debate on cultural legacy, heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day. The pictorial motifs are at once symbolic and poetic, drawn from personal as well as collective memories.
In a detailed and refined painting technique, if it is oil on canvas, or drawing with a simple ballpoint pen on paper I deal with the act of mapping and the definition of actual and symbolic boundaries. I am interested in investigating the
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domestication of nature, while documenting the process of growth and withering in the wild, I correspond with the old masters paintings and botanist drawings in a criticizing and contemporary point of view. Through my body of work I invite the audience to observe closely and consider questions regarding identity, evolution and pertinence and bring to mind the dialectics between local and global, the planted and the uprooted, east and west, indoors and outdoors, nature and culture. Entangling past and present, charted pathways and unrestrained nature. Esther Cohen