How much do the things we let go of continue to shape and define us, when in reality we have only let go of pieces of ourselves?

Bygones

Our Lady of Mischief started out as a simple portrait study of 11.5 year-old Adi. But I totally fell in love with the mischievous half-smile she had in one of the reference photos, and decided to try and capture that extremely nuanced expression.

The portrait study took on a life of its own and evolved into a three-piece composition centered around Adi's smile, half-way between the adult and childhood worlds.

Her good nature and smile warrant a saint's halo, but her mischievous nature cause it to be made of a wheel from a child's bike. The honesty in her smile warrants one hand to hold up the scout's-honor salute, while the wink in her eye means her other hand is behind her back with its fingers crossed.

Our Lady of Mischief (Adi)

Untitled

Created as part of my 2021 solo show, Placedreamer, the work consists of specific places and objects from my childhood, reproduced in cast tar. Over the course of the exhibition, these objects change shape, distort, collapse, and lose their shape, contrasting the seeming constancy of our constructed identities and personal mythologies against the ever-shifting nature of the physical assets from which these are built.

House and Flower Dreaming

This piece focuses on the visual similarity between bonsai wires, used to direct and shape the branches, and the leather bands of the Jewish tefillin, wrapped around one’s body. The piece explores various aspects of similarity between these worlds, through the language of the traditional bonsai display, comprising three elements – tree, companion object, and scroll – positioned in an asymmetrical arrangement.

Tefilin

Inspired by contemporary Aboriginal painting, the works tell the story of my own ancestral lands, from the streets of Frankfurt to the fields of Israel. The paintings are rendered in mycelium, making them living, ever-changing works.

My Mother's Country

Analog

30 years of a bonsai tree's development, rendered as layers of acryilc glass. 

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Ofer Grunwald

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