Tal Amitai-Lavi's solo exhibition Light Construction is a site-specific installation created and built especially for the gallery, and is a continuum of Amitai-Lavi's exploration of the concept of home. The exhibition will include three elements that create one whole sculptural environment: a large drawing depicting a house impacted by Hurricane Katrina, drawn with black sewing thread glued on a clear Perspex sheet (an original technique developed by Amitai-Lavi in recent years), and two monumental sculptural works. One of the works is a colonnade echoing the colonnade in the gallery's façade, the other is a slightly opened door, a doorway peering into a dark and empty space.

All the works at the exhibition have been created in a laborious, repetitive and Sisyphean process. The sculptural works are based on geometry and mathematics, and are constructed in a unique technique; stretching thousands of clear and thin fishing lines. This sculptural method creates an architectural structure made of unconventional materials as well as a shift between the two dimensional and three dimensional, between presence and absence. The colonnade's usual presence of heavy and solid concrete appropriate for supporting pillars is transformed to an airy structure of illusive fishing lines. The door is spatially illusive, confusing the inside and outside, actual space with the imagined one, threatening and inviting at the same time.

The exhibition’s name, Light Construction, carries a dual meaning referring both to the airy aspect of the works, paraphrasing the term "light-frame construction", and to the feature of light which enables our vision to see the works as three dimensional. Light is so integral to this exhibition that it might be possible to consider as its main sculptural material.

In contrast to her earlier works where Amitai-Lavi focused on the relationships within the framework of the home or family, in this exhibition she draws away from those narratives and towards a visual and conceptual materiality. It is a continuous reductive effort which manifests in her choice of image, matter and colour.

Tal Amitai-Lavi (b. 1969, Israel) graduated cum laude from Hamidrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College, she holds a B.A. (cum laude) in the Multidisciplinary Program of the Arts, Tel Aviv University, and an MFA in Creative Arts from the University of Haifa.

Amitai-Lavi has had several solo exhibitions in Israel and participated in numerous group exhibitions in major galleries, museums, and other venues. Her works are in some of the finest collections in Israel and abroad. In 2013 she received support for Light Construction catalogue from the Pais Council for Art and Culture.

In 2010 her work "Direct Hit / The House on Nahalal St.,Haifa" was awarded the Sotheby's prestigious "Under The Hammer" prize at "Fresh Paint 3" fair. Her solo exhibition "(temporary) Happiness," 2004, was supported by the Forum of Art Museums and the Beracha Foundation; in 2002 and 2003 she received an Artist-Teacher Award from The Israeli Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport; and in 1996 and 1997 she won the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship (Sharett Foundation).

All images Tal Amitai - Lavi, Light Construction, installation view, Chelouche Gallery, Tel-Aviv, 2014. Photography Youval Hai

Chelouche Gallery
7 Mazeh St.
Tel Aviv 65213 Israel
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