Amir Nave
Considered in an infinite temporality, the human being is worked by Amir Nave in an obsessive, spiritual, or even quasi-mystical manner. He endlessly asks himself who we are and where we are going. By following the movement of Nave’s figures or “creatures”, the spectator embraces some of human passions. If certain works even seem to play on classics of art history and mythology, Nave nonetheless refutes the notion of representing an everyday life meant to help us better understand who we are. In his early career, he took an interest in landscapes and insects, searching for parallels between our species and theirs. His forms then evolved into “creatures”, drawing on deeply buried pasts as well as possible futures. Sometimes depicted as a body, a head or an entity, they are alive and active. “The human being is unfathomable and, within each of us, this question of eternity resides,” he says. “In my work, I try to grasp what these characters are doing and where they are heading.” Faced with these philosophical and metaphysical questions, the artist reminds us that the fact of living in Israel, and more generally in the Middle East, has long induced a sort of tension.
Incidentally, it was while spending an extended period of time near the River Jordan a few years ago that Nave began thinking about landscape again. Gripped by an imperceptible feeling also related to colours and light, he then sought to define the aesthetics of a holy place. How could he show the quality of the air or striking beauty? As an artist how could he attest to what was magical? In the studio, where he works impulsively and compulsively until a piece is completed, as shown by his vigorous line, other openings enrich these questions. Recently Nave felt that his protagonists had a more peaceful place to go. He now combines his impressions of everyday life with a form of mysticism emanating from places. At times confronted by prevailing unrest and chaos, he attempts to remedy a general feeling of solitude and loss of bearings. “Through my characters, I wonder what we are doing here. But also what the right path to describe the present is, before projecting ourselves into the future,” he says. If the human being is depicted harshly or crudely – or perhaps faced with an uncompromising reality – there is still a lust for life or a place in the world resembling the Holy Land…
(texte de Marie Maertens).
