(Originally published on ArtSlant) It’s a cruel world, according to Avner Ben-Gal. In his paintings and drawings the Israeli-born artist unveils an uncanny world of shaken-up dream logic in which human forms are melded with Swiss Army knives, faceless women appear in graphic anatomical detail, and figures both human and fantasy appear in confrontation with each other. It’s the bad dream that haunts our waking hours, the sinister side of life that we try to brush away.
Over
two rooms, this exhibition at Sadie Coles takes in a selection of
Ben-Gal’s drawings in blue pencil, graphite and black marker pen as well
as a small selection of paintings. It’s fair to say that crudeness, in
both the execution of the works and their unflinching themes and
depiction of the human body, runs through all of the works.
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| Avner Ben-Gal, The Last Cough, 2011. |
In
a blue pencil drawing, the network of veins are meticulously drawn out
across a woman’s breasts while her face is blurred into anonymity. When
he takes up a black marker pen, it’s more with a sense of urgency than
accuracy, and within the swipes and dots of ink there’s a rhythm of
movement and energy. They are cartoonish in their lack of detail and
inky opacity; bold, rude and quickly formulated like graffiti.
Unlike
the stark monochome of his drawings, Ben-Gal’s paintings are a murkier
affair with roughhewn figures and forms lurking within a subdued
palette. Similarly unnerving, these paintings offer a narrative of
darkness, violence and ambiguity set in a world pervaded by an ashy grey
with smeary unreadable forms.
Ben-Gal’s
works are confrontational and can be confounding, so this is not an
exhibition to raise the spirits. These images don’t exist to comfort or
offer solutions; they’re everything we try to block out when we look for
beauty in art.
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