Reflections, A new short documentary about Sigal Tsabari

I am honored to be able to present this enchanting new short documentary by Eran Ackerman about the art of Israeli painter Sigal Tsabari who is current solo show of new paintings is on display at the Gordon Gallery in Tel Aviv and will be up until February 3.

Sigal Tsabari will also be leading a workshop in Civita Castellana, Italy at the JSS in Civita from July 9th – 30th 2018. More information can be found at this link on the JSS in Civita website.

I interviewed Ms. Tsabari for Painting Perceptions in 2012 which you can read here.

This documentary gives the viewer insights into Sigal thoughts and actions during her painting sites in Italy as well as in her home in Israel. The film also shows how she works on a major drawing of the filmmaker, Eran Ackerman.  The literary scholar, Dr. Ariel Hirschfeld, from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem and who Sigal drew his portrait in 2002 states in the video:

There’s something about the way Sigal paints, what we call realism, that I find particularly intriguing. It’s pointless to paint realistically when trying to depict reality. Photography does that in its own way. The intrigue behind realistic painting is that it not only penetrates the scene it depicts, but that it’s filtered through the artist’s consciousness. And that consciousness doesn’t participate in presenting the reality, if you can’t tell that the reality passed through a person’s perception, then realism is pointless. Sigal is a person who sees it all, but she’s also not indifferent.The scene passes through her and is interpreted by her personality into something completely different, and that’s very visible in all her paintings. – Dr. Ariel Hirschfeld,

In a previous essay Dr. Hirschfeld also stated:

“…In Tsabari’s work, her detailed, accurate, and pedantic rendering of objects is not felt to be construction, but its exact opposite – deconstruction. The parts brought to greater refinement do not look more “illusory” but rather more analyzed, and as though the whole painting is perceived as a search for another, less accurate modus that could catch movement and color without decomposing the. ‘When I paint and dig to the bottom, to the smallest vein of a leaf, for instance, then – after a short time it looks to me as though it’s enough. If I continued I would become a worker. That’s boring,” says Sigal Tsabari. The key word here is “dig”, that is, there is painting which is observation, and there is painting which is digging, that is painstaking “burrowing” under the surface of things, to their tiny details. The “digging” and the ‘hovering” are the poles between which Tsabari’s paintings move.”– Dr. Ariel Hirschfeld

Reflections

By Eran Ackerman, Videographer and Photographer

I asked Eran Ackerman if he would want to write something about his video and he offered the following:

“As a photographer, painting and drawing always seemed like mysterious processes to me. I was fascinated by the classic painters, and really enjoyed the art courses I took. The ability to create a whole new image from scratch was something I had to be involved with during my studies but it wasn’t something that ever came easily.

No matter how much I wanted to learn to draw, standing in front of a blank sheet of paper often just led me to frustration. So, years later, when I found myself at Sigal Tsabari’s studio, I realized that I would be witnessing the real process of how works of art are actually created. Now I would see the truth more clearly but it would only be belated compensation for the disorientation I had always felt in front of a blank canvas.

Documenting the progress of a painting is something I had always believed to be almost impossible to grasp. Although it might seem that there’s nothing more visible than the path a painting traces from the very start to its ultimate completion, what we see is merely an external wrapping for the real thing, which is the experience the artist goes through. I found that following the footsteps of the painter was a journey of continuous bewilderment and a constant questioning of my own ability to faithfully record the real essence of the process. There were no precise moments when I felt I had solved this mystery, and if I ever felt I was getting closer, that moment would disappear as quickly as it came.

To have the camera pointing not only at Sigal, but also at me, throughout the portrait drawing, was a significant change for me. I now found myself totally embedded in the process, no longer simply an observer, and that difference forced me to reassess my ability to document and represent what was actually unfolding in the studio. Altogether we had eleven drawing sessions, each lasting four or five hours. During this time I began to understand that it’s almost impossible to convey any accurate sense of the pervading atmosphere especially when I could hardly comprehend it myself.

I believe that as the project advanced, some kind of dialogue did develop between us, a dialogue that I feel is, in many ways, present in the video. It also became clear that the very effort of trying to tell the story of the process of creating has its own significant effect on the final outcome.

I feel that this is also the right place to thank Sigal for so patiently sharing her studio space with me and my camera. Even though she invited me to consider this project I took nothing for granted and almost felt that I was entering forbidden territory. To be in a relatively small space and continue to concentrate on painting while someone works around you with all his gear is not a situation I would enjoy. Thank you Sigal.”