Art Gallery
Best works
Dynamics
Games of light
Empty Dream
Acts of Creation
Creating a Magical World from the Core
Depths
In the spirit of the Atelier Mordecai Ardon
2006 Etchings, Paris
Miniatures
To Love the Inherently Small, Miniatures 1999 -2009
Autumn Mysteries
pictures from group exhibitions
Dialogues, 2014-2021
A Retrospective of Series 2000 - 2022

Art work by technique:
Water
Oil
Drawing
Engravings and prints
Mixed technique
Geometric structures

Empty Dream

The exhibition took place during:
November - December 2003 in Jerusalem at the Jerusalem Municipal
Art Gallery.


The cover of the catalog

 



Exhibition of pictures in oil on canvas.  The focus in this exhibition was a large picture composed of nine paintings, each of 40x60 cm. for a total of 120x180 cm. The picture was created in the wake of a terrorist attack on a #20 bus that exploded in front of my Jerusalem home in November 2002.

"Empty dream" looks to the observer as if I had damaged my own work, punctuated by white areas as though they were torn. These white fissures that tear the picture from the inside, represent to me the rupture and the sorrow which I felt after the terrorist attack and of the feeling of helplessness that came after it.
The other pictures in this exhibition constituted an anti-thesis to this picture and emphasized the difference between harmony and disharmony.
The exhibition took place in November 2003 at the City Gallery of Jerusalem.

Nowadays, "Empty Dream" is exhibited at the Jerusalem mayor‘s office.

From the Press: 

Requiem for Peace

"…Empty Dream is a work composed of nine pastoral  paintings, whose melancholy is disrupted with slashes"
"…In spite of the background story and trauma on which it is based, there is no exhibition of difficult scenes…"
"These works, as previously mentioned are composed of nine painting. Similar to other works of Polotsky, these are abstract paintings drawn with soft, nimble touches of colors which create a landscape. But to this soft and dream-like background were added, after the terrorist attack, coarse tears by Polotsky herself, “As if I had damaged my own work,” she says. "The painting, if one can ignore the context for a moment‘ gives a sensation of pleasantness and aesthetic beauty…"

“I am pursuing beauty”, explains Polotsky. “Everyone has a duty in this world and I see it as my duty to add a little bit of beauty to the world. Maybe beauty is a dirty word in contemporary art nowadays, but to me it is very important. Here I felt that I cannot pay attention to harmony and beauty as usual and so I painted these nine pictures … I felt that I must do it.‘

.…The other pictures (in the exhibition) constitute an antithesis and emphasize the difference between serenity and disharmony."

Efrat Zemmer, Kol Hazman, 21.11.2003

More about the exhibition

Empty Dream
On  November 21st, 2002 a no. 20 bus
exploded opposite my home‘ window in
Kiryat Menahem.

The harsh experience of the terrorist attack
drew me to create a piece of art that looks
to observer as if I damage my work, which
is completely covered by white spaces.

Until now, I could not exhibit this work
because I felt that I "spoiled" and "Damage"
by my own hand these nine harmonious
pictures. Looking at the creation, afeeling of
sorrow and pain not only on it‘ but also on
what it signifies, the white fissures that tear the
pictures from the inside, expressed to me the
rupture and the tear/rag/breach that exist in
our country.

Only after a year has eloped since the
terrorist attack, that to my sorrow, was not
the last one, did I find the courage to
show this creation in public.

Liat Polotsky [from the exhibition‘s catalogue]

--------------

Empty Dreams

The main work in the series is composed of nine paintings created in the wake of a terrorist attack which occurred near the artist’s home.  This caused a tear in her dream and became a void in the midst of beauty and hope.

The emptiness that Polotsky leaves on the bare canvas screams its pain, its horror and does not allow the observer to ignore, escape or forget.  This emptiness recounts the void left by the victims, disturbing our serenity, without actually drawing the injured and killed themselves.  Amidst all the beauty and calm of Polotsky’s works, this tear is a point of visual blindness which repeats itself obsessively.

The tear conveys the collective trauma that we all experience – we all have tears in our souls – and the artist expresses our hurt and anger, our helplessness and our anguish.

The dreamlike landscapes presented as well in this exhibition portray Polotsky’s approach to the subject of her paintings – full of beauty and light, radiating energy and moving from calm to turbulence.  These illusory landscapes allow us to go on a meditative journey – we need only to concentrate and surrender to the guiding path of the artist. This is a journey to the very private world of Polotsky – to her personal reality and reverie. 

        Hana Barak Engel,  
Translated from the Hebrew by Michele Horowitz
[from the exhibition‘s catalogue]

 

 

 



Back to gallery