Lihi Turjeman
Tel-Aviv and Turin
September 2-30, 2021
Curated by Luna Goldberg
Sponsored by Carlo and Micòl Schejola Foundation
with support by Artis
BIO
Lihi Turjeman (Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1985) lives and works in Tel-Aviv and Turin. She received her MFA from Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem. In 2015, she was awarded the Israeli Ministry of Culture Award for young artists. Turjeman is a former resident of Cité internationale des arts in Paris; Artport TLV; Fondazione Spinola Banna in Italy; Nars Foundation; and ISCP in Brooklyn, NY. Her large-scale painting installations are characterized by a monochromatic nature and revolve around space in all of its multiple forms and meanings. Her works emphasizes an extreme duality, moving freely between an epic approach and a microscopic concentration on details that are drawn by “mapping” and scratching the surface. Her practice includes a manner that can be categorized as action painting, in which she performs physical actions on the surface of the picture plain. Through smearing, rubbing, peeling, staining and gluing, she hardens the fabric, while emphasizing its folds and textures. The canvas functions as a wall, a territory or a map that is yet to be drawn. Turjeman has exhibited widely during the past decade. Some venues include: The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, CCA TLV, Petach-Tikva Museum of Contemporary Art, the Haifa Museum of Art, and others. She is represented by Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel-Aviv. Her works may be found in public and private collections in Israel, Europe, and in the United States. The artist is represented by Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv/Zurich and Ncontemporary, Milan/London.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Driven by personal motivations which often mirror that of mankind, Lihi Turjeman creates from a specific locality, be it cultural, historic, geographic, or mythologic. Working with large-scale painting installations characterized by a monochromatic palette, Turjeman’s works are produced through ‘action painting,’ in which she performs physical actions across her intended surface. The textural qualities of the canvas have a great impact on the finished painting and are carefully chosen to match and resonate with the motive. Through smearing, rubbing, peeling, staining and gluing, she hardens fabric, while emphasizing its complex folds and textures. Turjeman’s works are deeply influenced by her surroundings, the opportunities and limitations of her immediate space, as well as the possibilities and limits of her own physical capacity to create. Each work is centered around a physical and imagined space, with all of its forms and meanings. Examining the tension between two opposing forces—chiefly, the destruction and construction of images, and the opposition between figurative and abstract—Turjeman aims to represent the tangible, while constantly collapsing the image within her own work. Through reduction and reconstruction, she reimagines the limits of representation and recognition, while continually folding complex narratives into her paintings.
On floors and ceilings, within and behind walls, Lihi Turjeman’s large-scale installations penetrate layers of lime and plaster, geography and history. Through intense labor, digging through walls, mixing materials and transferring layers of paint, she maps territories and reveals layers of personal and public history, at times hidden from the eye.
ARTIST LINKS
Website: Lihi-turjeman.com
Gallery: Sommer Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv/Zurich), and Ncontemporary (Milan/London)
Instagram: @lihi_turjeman