Visiting Bergamot Station, I checked out every gallery, one by one, in the hope that when I enter a gallery and glance at the exhibition going on – boom – I’d fall in love with the art on exhibit. But alas, it did not happen. I did not see anything I really liked enough to write about – that is, until I walked into the Shoshana Wayne Gallery. And there it was, right there, in front of my eyes, and yes, I liked the works. I liked it a lot. All done in metal – aluminum and stainless steel, the exhibit was “an explosion of nature as symbolic of the moment of the discovery.” Wow… I thought to myself. These works are certainly very spiritual, almost religious, in the way that the artist has become like a Tibetan monk who lives in a temple and is giving all of himself to lay a mosaic for the temple to express his fate and say his prayer. I think probably it was in the same manner and the same way that the artist of this exhibition, Zodak Ben-David, felt when he was working on his metal shapes and art pieces. He gave it his all, and as a result, became very centered and traveled to his own core. He traveled to the deepest depth of his own soul. You can see the butterfly used in all his work as a symbolic element of nature. Also very important, he believes that the butterfly represents the last link in the chain between man and the nature world.
In the the main gallery, separated from the other areas and rooms of the gallery by heavy, long black drapes, is his master piece. It is an installation of one circle with two disparate sides. The three-meter form is composed of over 2,000 miniature butterflies and insects, each patiently and delicately hand-painted in bright colors. The piece hangs like a mysterious and unknown element in the black darkened space, only to be seen under UV light. Looking at it, you feel you are in the presence of something extraordinary and amazing. Imagine how much the artist had to invest of himself in order to give his art piece the impact and the effect that it puts on you. You feel responsible to, in return, also do your job as a viewer – to look at his art with the same patience and the same depth necessary to see it in its total core.
About Zadok Ben-David
Zadok Ben-David lives and works in London. His work has been shown extensively in Europe and Asia. The artist currently is featuring large scale outdoor work in the Singapore Botanical Gardens. Ben-David represented Israel in the Venice Biennale in 1988. He is the recipient of both the Grande Biennial Premio at the XIV Biennale Internacional de Arte de Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal 2007 as well as the Tel Aviv Museum prize in 2005. as well as the Tel Aviv Museum prize in 2005. He has had exhibitions in The Tel Aviv Musem titled Human Nature (2009); Living in Evolution (2010) in Busan Biennial, South Korea; Wonder Singapore Biennale 2008 and at the Biennale Cuveé 2009 in Austria among others.
See Zadok Ben-David: The Other Side of Midnight from January 12 – February 16, 3013 at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery. http://www.shoshanawayne.com
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Tags: Art, Art Reviews, Bergamot Station, Insects, Santa Monica, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, The Other Side of Midnight, Zadok Ben-David
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