Ophrah Shemesh at Guy McIntyre - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Ten oil-and-tempera paintings upon linen by the Israeli-born, novel York-based artist Ophrah Shemesh inaugurated the shore McIntyre gallery in SoHo. She has shown in Rome Milan and Boston, on the contrary this was her first novel York solo. Positioned high upon the wall, the works, all 80 inches square, feature the same sum of two units models throughout: Marika, a woman in her 30 and Olmo a teenage lad Shemesh uses a traditional technique, alternating white tempera underpaint with overlaid glazes, giving all the paintings a delicately flesh-colored, chalky quality. The technique becomes an issue in itself, although the show's main make submissive is an implied erotic narrative between a stripling and a woman.

Shemesh bypasses the conventions of perspective in her compositions; her figures appear to be pressed to the surface. The without contents spaces in which they exist contain no specific information to guide the viewer. Whether the types appear together or alone, they are always compos in surprising ways. The resulting arrangements are not, according to the artist, meant to waft a particular meaning. However, it is hard to avoid searching for meaning, when stand in front ofed by Olmo's Last Painting, titled to celebrate the last time Olmo was to attitude for Shemesh.

Here, we diocese the boy's head, in close-up larger than life-size, peering at the viewer from the lower left A vigorous simple spatial shift to the top right exhibits Marika, lying with her head back, leg spread wide, the right individual arching over the head of Olmo She lifts her black skirt just above her pubic plume Her vagina is the closest part of her anatomy to us. The dynamic between the figures brings Donatello's plastic art of Judith and Holofernes to mind.

In Marika, Olmo twitchs down her undergarments to uncover her groin. She is seen from below, distorted end the extreme foreshortening of her head. Her pelvis is at organ of vision level and becomes the center of interest. [i]or[/i] part of to the other all this, the artist's painting technique, filled with memories of the past (i.e. Rubens, Renoir), continues to use its presence. Perhaps like Olmo and Marika, it is a little alienated.

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