Dana Zaltzman | CAPTURE SERENITY

Dana Zaltzman Capture Serenity
Curator: Dr. Doron J. Lurie

Zemack Contemporary Art is excited to open the new art season with a solo exhibition by artist Dana Zaltzman. The exhibition will showcase over 30 paintings created in the last three years and will open on Thursday, September 5th at 20:00 at Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery.

Zaltzman is one of the leading artists in the field of hyperrealism in Israel. She is a graduate of art studies in Florence, with an impressive record that includes exhibitions in galleries and museums worldwide: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, New York, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Munich, and Florence. This is her third solo exhibition at Zemack and her first in four years. Her works, characterized by honesty and sharpness, create an exhibition that draws the viewer into a different world—simple, calm, and serene. She elevates everyday banal objects, sanctifying their meaning and importance.

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Exhibition Text by Dr. Doron J. Lurie

A close look at Dana Zaltzman’s figurative realist paintings brings to mind the word – virtuoso. Her works depict simple, everyday objects with extraordinary precision—silver and bronze bowls, with awe-inspiring painted light reflections, a bucket full of twigs, or a tin tub overflowing with laundry. Her approach to painting could be summarized in the words of Dr. David Graves: “For Dana, the simplest object… is a gateway to a rich and complex realm of ideas, possibilities, and sentiments. It seems that Dana is fascinated by the simple truth of everyday objects”…

Zaltzman is capable, for example, of dedicating an entire painting to the folds of a white cloth hanging on a line. The white folds gain an autonomous status, and countless details of volume, light, and shadow are captured with astounding skill. It is a painting of a visual object, but the viewer can almost physically feel the different textures of the fabric. Is the depiction of this white cloth merely a domestic and innocent scene? Or does the tied rope suggest a hidden dimension in this everyday occurrence? Zaltzman herself states that she seeks to capture the direct gaze and nothing more. However, when observing her works, one can identify a closeness to the worlds of great Renaissance and Baroque artists, which she might have been exposed to during her studies in Florence. In this context of depicting fabric in painting, there may be a connection to one of the well-known scenes in art history: “The Veil of Veronica”—another white cloth blowing in the wind, which the great painters endeavored to depict with the face of “The Savior” imprinted on it.

Christian symbolism can also be found in Zaltzman’s painting of a tempting donut with a jelly top and sprinkled powdered sugar. This depiction of the fried pastry could be connected to the Eucharist ritual—a ceremony where the “Last Supper” is reenacted through the consecration of a wafer or small round bread (‘Holy Communion’). The consecrated bread serves as a symbolic substitute for the bread that Jesus blessed himself, and the priest inserts it into the mouths of the believers at the end of Sunday mass while murmuring: ‘This is the body of Christ.’ Zaltzman’s donut is a kind of such Holy Communion, and the jelly at its top might represent one of the five stigmata wounds of the crucified.

Sensory Deception

The illusory depiction of textiles and their properties occupies a central place in many of Zaltzman’s works, and there is no doubt that one of the challenges she undertakes is the faithful pictorial depiction of textures. For instance, in her pillow paintings (three pictures), they evoke an almost irresistible urge to reach out and feel their softness. This is a masterful work that can be properly appreciated only when the clear physical impulse is contrasted with a rational thought about the illusory nature of the painting. That is, only when one contemplates the wooden board (plywood) on which the pillows are painted and realizes that the pillows are not actually soft—they just look that way!

This contrast between the information received from one sense (sight) compared to another (touch) is a theme with deep roots in art history. The Italian sculptor Antonio Canova was famous for his ability to transform material and deceive the senses. Between 1805-1809, he sculpted, for instance, Pauline Bonaparte (one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s sisters) as she lay reclining on a soft mattress rich with folds. Her half-exposed body is an allegory for “Venus Victorious”. The sculpture is made of Carrara marble, and anyone who thinks about it logically for a moment will understand that it is cold and smooth to the touch. Yet, under Canova’s hands, it underwent such a perfect transformation that it’s hard to believe that the mattress is not as soft as it appears.

Zaltzman’s connection with classical Italian painting and its values is deep and significant, even if she is not always aware of it herself. In her still-life paintings, she depicts ripe grapes, juicy cherries, shiny strawberries, blueberries, or tempting raspberries. Caravaggio, as a young artist in the late 16th century, also painted a “Basket of Fruit”. Such still-life paintings, especially those created in the Netherlands and Flanders in the 16th and 17th centuries, often carry visual moral-theological allegories expressing the ideas of “Vanitas” – meaning: “Vanity of vanities—all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes) and “Memento Mori”, which translates from Latin as “Remember death.” Time passes, the clock ticks, and we must remember that our existence on earth is transient. In other words: our time is limited, the flowers will wither, the fruits will rot, and like them, our lives on earth are fleeting. This is a hint that we should cling to the salvation of the soul and the eternal life offered by religious faith through prayers, repentance, loyalty to the church, charity, etc. rather than indulging in the fleeting sensory pleasures (vanities) of this world.

The Dream and Its Collapse: Blue-and-White Porcelain

Five different paintings in this exhibition depict delicate white porcelain objects adorned with blue decorations. The origins of such decorations on porcelain date back to the artists of China and Japan. Over time, the Spaniards and Portuguese began to develop their own decorative language for porcelain. The decorations they created were often in blue and white colors and were painted on ceramic tiles called “Azulejos.” A unique tradition of blue-and-white porcelain iconography also emerged in the Netherlands, centered in the small town of Delft. Unlike the Spaniards, the Dutch sought to produce delicate and thin porcelain, but the artists of the Far East refused to reveal the production secrets. Only in the early 18th century was the secret discovered: a mixture of kaolin (white clay) found at the bottom of rivers in China with silica. When I first encountered Zaltzman’s porcelain paintings, this rich history flashed before my eyes, even if the vessels she collected and painted are not actually from the city of Delft.

Man is Nothing but a Bubble

An unusual painting in Zaltzman’s body of work is a relatively large-scale work depicting a balloon from which part of the helium gas has already dissipated. The balloon is tied with a red ribbon to a heavy iron weight placed on the floor. It seems that the central point here is the tension created between the two elements: the light balloon wanting to rise upwards and the heavyweight that anchors it to the ground. This is a struggle with a known end: the balloon has no chance of overcoming the weight. Its only hope of soaring lies in the possibility that the ribbon, which is the weak link in this construction, will not withstand the pressure and will tear.

Perhaps we all sometimes feel like that balloon? Would we also like to soar? What does the heavyweight represent, which stands in stark contrast to the shining ribbon and the airy balloon? Maybe this interpretation can also be connected to a broader cultural allegory to the theological idea of “Vanitas”, which was represented in various forms in Dutch art through paintings of babies and children blowing soap bubbles. Like the balloon, the soap bubbles belong to the world of children, and like it, they rise upwards and are destined to vanish, to burst at any moment. Just like human life, which passes in a flash and disappears as suddenly as it came.

Text by Dr. Doron J. Lurie – Expert in Museology, European Art, and the Study of the Authenticity of Artworks; former Senior Curator and Chief Restorer at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.