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Miri Frenkel Eshet
For over a decade I've been studying and painting the theme of the garden; private gardens, historical gardens, artists' gardens, public gardens and backyards. I'm attracted to the contrast between the defined, outlined geometry of the layout and the chaotic yet restrained natural growth which seems to have a will of its own. I began to paint gardens in 1997 with series of metaphorical gardens - The Last Garden and Nora's Garden - which alluded to real-life gardens. At that point I was painting with my hands -without brushes – finding the process of creating one work out of many small, postcard sized parts very similar to the process of actual gardening. I then became intrigued with the history of gardens. With the help of maps and photographs of English gardens influenced by Islamic ornamentation I proceeded to create the Knot Gardens series (1998). The Pleasure Gardens series (1999) corresponded with monastic and medieval nobles' gardens. In the Hope Gardens painting installation (2000) which was influenced by the gardening ideas of Gertrude Jekyll, I 'planted' hundreds of green gardens which I painted on paper bags in nursery crates. In the installation Paper Bag Garden (2000), inspired by American poet Celia Thaxster's flower beds and Vita Sackville-West's English garden, a multitude of red paper bags hovered in space. In creating my next series – Water Gardens (2001-2), inspired by Claude Monet's Water lilies, I moved to a larger format, painting transparent and opaque gardens, layered by using a mixture of printmaking and painting techniques. In the course of exploring gardens throughout time, I came upon the maze garden with the whimsical element which characterized these gardens. This resulted in my acquaintance with the ancient art and use of the labyrinths in different times and cultures. I was particularly taken by the classic seven-ring maze and painted Labyrinths repeatedly throughout those years (2002-3). The work City Map (2004) was drawn according to the Tel-Aviv map as a giant garden stretching from Jaffa to Hayarkon Park. It was comprised of 32 pieces, 8.00 meters in all. All the gardens up to this point were painted from above, in the semblance of a map, which enabled me to examine the overall structure of the garden and its components. In Tel-Aviv Gardens (2004-6) I shifted my viewpoint to the path leading into and through the city's public gardens; a clear perspective wherein everything converges into the horizon line. I was trying to capture that resonant moment at the end of the day when the shadows are long and the light is fading. Up until then all my gardens were produced on paper. In Night Gardens (2007-8) I used stretched canvas in a square format. These works are a nocturnal variation of the Tel-Aviv gardens. Here the shadows are formed by the artificial light of lampposts, resulting in near monochromatic works. Since moving back to my old neighborhood, I had an urge to recapture a sense of mystery in its back yards and small alleys. In North West Quarter and Back Yard (2008-10) I stay close to home, often exploring shade forms in my own little garden.
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