Concrete Singing and Other Birds – Rose Bar Nur

    Concrete Singing and Other Birds – Rose Bar Nur

 Rose Bar-Nur is an artist who also teaches architecture and design. Born in Lvov, Ukraine, Bar-Nur immigrated to Israel at 13 with her parents. She claims that the beauty of her hometown—one of the architectural pearls of Europe between the 17th and 20th centuries—influenced her as a child, sparking a lifelong love of Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo artistic styles.

” As a baby, I was enchanted by the sound of a pencil on paper. At four, I was impressed by the paintings of fairy tales on the walls of the kindergarten and decided that when I grew up, I would draw all the fairy tales. That was the beginning of my love for the world of painting, with endless pencil sketches on paper. Throughout the years, the topics changed, but the desire for painting did not fade away. I dive into the world of art and try different techniques in order to create and enrich my repertoire of means and expression”.

Regarding the act of painting, Bar-Nur says, “A Day in the studio is no different than a working day. Usually, I prepare myself the night before and decide what I’ll do the next day. Every time I discover something new about the medium, the technique, the art, and about myself. The way I hold the brush while combining and mixing the colors, holding an internal, spiritual dialogue with myself. The crucial stage of the work is the beginning. Before I touch the paper or canvas, I read materials and delve into the subject. Afterwards, I proceed to the planning stage, the desired composition, the color palette, and the textures. Only then, after completing the planning stage, do I approach the canvas”.

As an artist and architect, Bar-Nur addresses in her work concepts of architecture, with her inspired use of the pencil and brilliant exploitation of all its possibilities.

At first, the image is created by sketching, underlining the line that created the form. This line will continue to develop into a metaphor or image. The volume is often gained by the use of color or by the inspired use of black and white, light and shade. Thus, a clear, structured, emotional—yet mysterious—line is created, expressing a clear, strong artistic statement. This statement is drawn from her past memories and knowledge of the future. Bar-Nur is the source of the line, black on white, white on black, an unlimited line that expresses all emotions and all shades. The line is carried out in space, digging into the soul’s depths, poetic, mystifying, touching.

In her works, images and structures ingrained in reality are created and born again on the canvas or paper. The images deceive, being both realistic and non-realistic, existing on the border between imagination and reality, light and shade, structured and hazy forms, between clear lines and colored surfaces, illusions and reality, and between the conscious and subconscious. With her unique handwriting, Bar-Nur leads the viewer on an emotional, personal journey, where emotions and thoughts are mixed. A journey between spaces, worlds, memories, the present and the future, the individual and society, the whole and the pieces. The viewer wanders between levels of reality, different events, and different eras, and is exposed to a strange and foreign beauty that simultaneously seems close and familiar. The images reflecting from her works do not belong to a specific time or place. They reflect universal feelings of yearning, fear of the unknown, astonishment, and the sense of understanding that humans are only a tiny part of the universe. A new reality is created on the canvas, full of vital beauty and aesthetic joy, with time losing all meaning. The viewer surrenders to looking at the present, as well as yearning for the past and thinking of the future.

The exhibition is in memory of Sidney and Yigal Flesh, who were murdered on the seventh of October.

Dr. Galia Duchin Arieli – Global Art Gallery – Tel: 050-2811710

Thanks to Lev Kiperman, founder and CEO of ICU, for his part in setting up the exhibition.