Fundamental Unit

Fundamental _________ Unit Elad Kopler Amir Tomashov

Fundamental Unit Elad Kopler and Amir Tomashov Curator: Hadas Glazer Online show, August - October 2021 Catalogue editors: Orit Ephrat-Moscovitz and Hadas Glazer Measurements are given in centimeters, height x length Measurements are without frames Right image: Detail from: Elad Kopler, Untitled, 2015 Front cover: Detail from Amir Tomashov, Exposed Landscape no. 25c, 2021 Back cover: Detail from Elad Kopler, Untitled, 2015

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Fundamental ___________ Unit

“Grid: A rectangular array of squares or rectangles of equal size, such as in a crossword puzzle.” (Wikipedia) This duo exhibition focuses on two Israeli artists - Elad Kopler and Amir Tomashov, as they explore a basic, simple and minimal form – the grid. Nevertheless, within its simplicity, a grid holds many spatial, artistic and philosophical connotations.

The works on display originated from gazing, analysing and processing urban landscapes. They refer to similar ideas and feelings arising from human lives within the metropolis fascinating alienation. Both artists are driven by their passion towards

those spaces, exploring different meanings represented by the grid. Despite their similar starting point, their distinct artistic practice makes this duo even more interesting.

While browsing through the exhibition, think of the proportion between the human body and architectural structures - a city, a building, a house, a block – all are fundamental units, grid-based, which ultimately inhabit human life. Another idea you may take with you on this journey is the tension arising from the contrast of order and chaos. Let Kopler’s wild dance of colors burst into your heart, while admiring the precision and accuracy pencil and cut out works by Tomashov.

Each artist moves between thresholds of orderchaos dyad, expressing freedom and libation together with well-constructed disciplined work.

Amir Tomashov b. 1978, lives and works in Afula Tomashov’s works seduce the spectator at first sight. His lines are impressively precise and accurate, combining hyper-realistic drawings with reused, rough materials. The result is realistic and yet fictional, depicting urban spaces which tend to awaken an uncanny sense of strange familiarity.

Tomashov, which is an accomplished architect, is in constant seek after a clinicalcritical point of view on the urban anatomy of the metropolis in Israel and abroad. He uses various media to create imaginary

scenes, such as drawing, collage, model, installation, and mixed media. The works are monochromatic, offering a symbolic comparison between the process of building and destruction. Shifting between various forms of grids in urban landscapes: buildings, maps, scaffoldings and bricks.

Those elements become a part of his highly aesthetical language, which also includes wheels, cranes and tubes.

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Scaffoldings no. 38, 2017 Graphite on wood platform, 60X90X10

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Detail

Sketch for Nothing no. 13, 2013 Graphite, ink, crayons, markers and collage on paper, 27X70

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Detail

Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 24, 2015 Graphite and ink on bookbinding, 27X21

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Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 25, 2014 Graphite and ink on bookbinding, 27X21

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Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 23, 2015 Graphite and ink on bookbinding, 27X21

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Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 12, 2014 Graphite and ink on bookbinding, 34X25

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Detail from Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 24

Detail from Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 25

Detail from Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 23

Detail from Abyssus Abyssum Invocat 12

Departures in the Dark 11, 2014 Mixed media on cardboard, 22.5X29.5

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Detail

Exposed Landscape no. 25c, 2021 Graphite on paper, 101.5X101.5

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Exposed Landscape no. 14a, 2014 Graphite and ink on bookbinding, 34X24

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Exposed Landscape no. 19c, 2016 Graphite, ink and collage on plywood, 56.5X46

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Exposed Landscape no. 25a, 2017 Graphite and ink on wood platform, 105X105X10

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Scaffoldings no. 24, 2012 Mixed media on wood, 18X48

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Scaffoldings no. 27a, 2017 Graphite, ink, crayons, markers and collage on cardboard, 30X59

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Elad Kopler The grid is a significant element in Kopler’s large-scale, oil, acrylic and spray artworks.

It is the infrastructure of each painting, emerging from the layers of colors.

The grid creates a bridge between the abstract expressionism movement and architectural blueprints. He is inspired by the spectacle of postmodern metropolis, American minimalism of the 1970s, scifi films and futuristic dystopias (such as The Matrix). Within Kopler’s works, various worlds exist, entwining autobiographical events, literature and cinematic references.

His work corresponds with painters from ancient, modern and contemporary eras, and treasures a constant balance between

bestial forces and the human need for organization and creation of meaning.

Each painting can be observed as a “site” - a dynamic and powerful occurrence, which contains an abstraction of the fictional future, and at the same time, a memory of traumatic events from the past. The paintings are created out of impulse , layers of paint rise and erase each other, leaving behind remnants of previous layers, yet they retain the underlying grid structure.

Untitled, 2017 Acrylic on canvas, 180X164

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Untitled, 2015 Acrylic on canvas, 160X126

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Untitled, 2016 Acrylic on canvas, 180X160

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Untitled, 2018 Oil, acrylic and spray on canvas, 220X180

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Untitled, 2015-16 Acrylic on canvas, 165X121

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Untitled, 2015 Acrylic on canvas, 178X143

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Untitled, 2016 Acrylic on canvas, 115X99

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Untitled V (Leftovers), 2014 Mixed media on canvas, 130X171

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Fundamental _________ Unit Elad Kopler Amir Tomashov