Smadar Eliasaf | Fire and Dust
Text: Ayelet Zohar
Smadar Eliasaf’s studio functions as a camera obscura – a space that generates images as traces of touch and movement, footprints, marks left by body and skin. The paintings are performed by the walls and floor, in a process that corresponds to photography and Automatism, as traces of presence, indexical expressions of a process that lies beyond sight, volition, consciousness, decision, or even choice. In this the paintings reflect Freud’s reference to photography as a metaphor of the unconscious. Eliasaf’s works paint themselves in the manner that certain photographs occur accidently – silent evidence to an action that took place in the past. The dark aspect of Eliasaf’s art pertains to its shady colors and the glow of gold and silver in the obscurity of the chamber. In Japanese art, the presence of black-and-gold is associated with Rinpa aesthetics: the use of gold leaf over dark surfaces creates a sense of glitter and movement.
