Maayan Elyakim / Transformations
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Curator: Hila Cohen-Schneiderman

“In ‘Transformations’, Elyakim treats the gallery as a mindful space that can co-inhabit a multitude of events and tensions: formalistic, medial and symbolic.

In recent months, Elyakim delved into the work of the group of artists who established and worked at Bezalel in the early 20th century. Similar to the current zeitgeist, the Bezalel group’s grasp of time was not linear but spiral. Biblical stories, European orientalist fantasies, archeological relics, modernist art, Palestinian embroidery, Bedouin weaving and Yemenite jewel making, were all mixed together in the creation of decorative objects and art that expressed the essence of the local sprit and culture of that time.

By investigating the local experience: the founding fathers of Israeli Art (Schatz, Raban, Lillien) and local nature (the scorching sun, the wilting flower that turned to a thorn), Elyakim uncovers insights regarding the universal existential being as a mortal human being who is unwillingly subjected to the cycles and laws of nature, celestial bodies, sexuality, abstract experiences, and the pendulum of birth, death, and rebirth.

Maayan Elyakim’s work processes, which include material experiments along with theoretical research, begin with attempts to resolve, touch, and nudge the intrinsic essence of the image, matter or phenomena. All along, cultural and historical elements drift away from their original context, integrate with each other, and deconstruct the traditional hierarchies to reveal new affiliations. The works implement a twisting and branching bond between them, which resonates through different frequencies and axes, contrasting rays of light and all-absorbing darkness; springing water and suffocating drought; the moon and the sun shining through the darkness”.

Taken from the exhibition text, by Hila Cohen-Schneiderman.

Maayan Elyakim (b. 1985) lives and works in Tel Aviv. He has exhibited several solo exhibitions in Israel, and his works have been presented in museums and galleries in Israel and abroad, at venues such as: Pulchri, Hague; Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv; the Biennale for Drawing, Jerusalem; Petach Tikva Museum and Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv. Since 2016 he is a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design, Jerusalem. He is the 2010 Keshet Award recipient, and has a BFA in Fine Art from the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design, Jerusalem.