Petah Tikva Museum of Art. Curator: Irena Gordon
Photography: Meidad Suchowolski. Display design: David Chaki
Group exhibition
“Doris Arkin creates sculptures and installations through an ongoing laborious manual process of cutting and joining, piercing and connecting, in materials such as iron and bronze, fabric, paper, wax, threads, scrap metal, and personal objects. From all of these, she assembles grids and weaves, which in turn spawn three-dimensional bodies, structures that record personal and collective memory as vestiges of an absent presence.
The work Matter alludes to the material of creation and the universe, while also encapsulating the word “mother” (mater, in Latin). It is a sculpture resembling a well or a basket from which a cloth of sorts flows. The basket is made of metal, emerging like primordial matter, with the textile seemingly stretching and spilling outwards. The oozing mass carries memories and emotions of the vulnerable body, of which only traces remain as soft-looking remnants despite their actual rigidity. The work was first exhibited at the Beit Uri and Rami Nehoshtan Museum, Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov Meuchad.
An integral part of Arkin`s sculptural work is a private collection of fertility maternal figurines. The collection, assembled over more than 15 years from various sources, includes figurines from the Middle and Far East, Europe, Africa and America, which represent diverse and distinct aspects of motherhood in ancient and tribal cultures. The physical-emotional expression of the figurines in the collection is interwoven in Matter, forming a timeless artistic dialogue that introduces a space for reflection on the nature of human bonding.”
Irena Gordon – Exhibition wall text
