Reut Dafna | Who Are You?

Reut Dafna Who Are You?
Opening Reception: Thursday, Oct. 31 at 8 pm

Reut Dafna, (b. in 1981) lives and creates in Kibbutz Maoz Haim.  She graduated from the plastic arts department at Tel Hai College and is a student of Elie Shamir. The exhibition at Zemack Contemporary Art, is a continuation of Dafna’s previous exhibition, To Whom Do You Belong?, which was exhibited at the Uri & Rami Nehoshtan Museum (curated by Dr. Ayelet Carmi). Dafna continues to explore the concepts of identity and belonging, as well as the individual and the collective, which are central elements in her work.

The exhibition will feature drawings in charcoal powder and oil paintings, based on visual sources such as personal photographs, family albums, and historical archival photographs taken by her partner’s grandfather, who was one of the founders of the kibbutz and a central figure in the community’s life. Through these paintings, Dafna offers a personal and unique interpretation of the compositions, while adding or subtracting details from the original photographs.

A central theme in the exhibition is sleep and levitation, which appears both in self-portrait paintings and in the paintings of her sleeping children. The subjects are sometimes shown as floating in empty space, which enhances the feeling of peace and distance from everyday reality. This motif is also related to the artist’s struggle with arthritis and reflects a longing for freedom from pain and a feeling of lightness.

Another part of the exhibition is dedicated to paintings based on archival family photographs, which create an intergenerational dialogue and emphasize family roots and kibbutz life over the years. The combination of historical documentation and contemporary photography allows the artist to explore the dynamics of changes and permanence in family and community life and raises questions about identity and belonging over time.

Dafna seeks to find beauty, peace, and wholeness in everyday life. Her works try to disconnect the viewer from the difficulties of reality and invite the viewer to a utopian, more pleasant world, where life seems simple and easy to digest. In these challenging days, the exhibition offers small points of light and space to breathe, while constantly examining questions of identity and belonging.

The exhibition offers viewers an opportunity to reflect and observe everyday reality through Dafna’s eyes. It does not provide unequivocal answers but invites us to consider the complex questions of personal, family, and community identity, through layered visual experiences.