Oren Eliav Guest Artist: Oscar Abosh Curator: Carmit Blumensohn
Oren Eliav's exhibition at the Open University Gallery presents works from his cycle The Island Was a World. It is comprised of a poem, a video work, and oil paintings.
Eliav describes the process of creating it:
“It started as a sentence and an image – "The island was a world." An island is a land surrounded by water. It forms when standing out from its surroundings. The island comes into being from the outlines marked by its shores. As the outlines blur, the island becomes an entire world. In painting, an island is any spot of paint appearing on the white canvas.
“Somehow, as the island edges diffuse, it becomes self aware. Forgetting it was an island, and remembering that it is a world. Through the eyes of birds and all that inhabit it, the island observes, makes laws, discovers patterns and codifies principles, and those are immediately applied for new, ceaseless creation.
“The island is a mathematical model that generates images from patterns hidden within it. These patterns are collected into laws that shape its existence. Just like us, the island is a generative consciousness creating images of reality".
Oren Eliav's poetic painting installations have been exhibited in museums and galleries in Israel and around the world, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2011), the Israel Museum (2018), and the Building Gallery in Milan (2020). In this project, the artist broadened his artistic expression to incorporate a video piece, centered around a poem. The video integrates multiple forms of media, including generated still images, animation, sound, and an original soundtrack
composed by the artist. Eliav uses traditional techniques alongside newer technologies, from oil paintings on canvas to dialogue with different models of generative artificial intelligence.
Oscar Abosh, a guest artist, presents a video installation from his series Beginning (2020-2024). The installation features a single-channel video that showcases Abosh's wanderings in nature, where he observes and records the environment and remnants of ancient civilizations.
The videos will be displayed on ten screens throughout the gallery as what he calls “breathing images," acting as a "mirror of truth" in contrast to Eliav's "fabrication." Each screen serves as a window into reality, offering an unedited and unorchestrated observation into the world; a representation of the artist's specific point of view and the duration of its expression.