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January 4, 2002
Israel, ancient and modern
Living legends and desertscapes are the focus of a JCC exhibit.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
The Holy Land - past and present - has come to the Zack Gallery
in the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. The current
exhibit, by husband-and-wife team Naomi and Reuven Spiers, depicts
biblical icons, as well as familiar images from today's Israel.
Naomi Spiers is a sculptor, whose works in this exhibit include
remarkable depictions of biblical figures at their most dramatic
moments. For instance, Joseph is shown with his back to the beseeching
wife of Potiphar. This pivotal encounter is depicted twice in this
exhibit - once in grapefruit wood and another version in bronze.
In another piece sculpted in bronze, the angel is intervening with
Jacob, pre- sumably just before their struggle. In another, Noah
is releasing the dove. In one of the most vivid sculptures, also
in bronze, Jonah is shown desperately flailing above the gaping
maw of the whale - a depiction so extreme that a witness is not
certain whether the proper response is to laugh or scream.
Naomi Spiers' interest in the turning point of the lives of biblical
characters is carried through in a series of paper cuts that are
also included in this exhibit.
With lace-like intricacy, Spiers shows the discovery of Moses in
the bulrushes and, again, the fate of Jonah at the jaws of the giant
fish.
In the artist's statement accompanying the exhibit, Spiers writes
that she attempts to depict biblical figures at their seminal moments
- of decision, realization, testing or transcendence.
"To me, the characters in the Bible are not just historical
or religious figures," she writes. "They are real people
whose stories are archetypes of human experience and with whose
feelings we can all identify."
Her husband's work is more modern, though he depicts the ancient
land of Israel. Reuven Spiers uses watercolors to convey the loneliness
of the desert, returning to the image of a single home or community
against the backdrop of the oppressive barrenness. Yet the beauty
of the shifting sand and the power of the sun give the starkness
of this landscape a definite warmth and welcoming hue.
In his pieces "Grass Lands" and "Golan Outpost,"
the golden grasses blow in the wind and provide a relatively lush
desertscape.
Not so lush, yet just as vivid, are the fiery reds and oranges
of a series of precise watercolors that include "Kinneret Autumn,"
"Sun Bleached" and "Last Tree." In these, the
solitude of the desert is repeated, with one depicting a lonely
home sheltered by a slight hill and another illustrating a stubborn
tree spreading its roots to get what water it can from the oasis
that sustains it.
Not all of Reuven Spiers works are so bleak, however. In "Shared
Breakfast," Spiers shows two birds feasting on crumbs left
out for them at an open window. Though no people are depicted, the
human presence is close by. A loaf of bread and a knife are on the
counter. The person has, perhaps, stepped back enough to watch the
birds at breakfast.
In his artist's statement, Spiers says that these watercolors depict
his response to the countryside and other places he saw on his latest
trip to Israel. For him, watercolor is the best medium to depict
the stunning palette of the desert.
"The need for a direct clean application to achieve the colors'
inner light and transparency are its main appeal," he writes.
Together, the exhibit, titled The Galilee Years, provides a rounded
perspective of Israel's ancient religious life as well as how close
to the soil life remains in Israel's modern times.
The Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery is located on the main floor
of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver at 950 West
41st Ave. The Spiers exhibit runs at the gallery until Jan. 17.
For information, call 604-257-5111.
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