“Naming plays an important part in the double resurrection of these dry bones in art — of ancient memories which materialize anew, of found objects, and of the memory of the world's misery. This final, concluding step is taken with great care by Arkin, because the name, memory's foundation of all foundations and pillar of all wisdom, must include the memory of the things themselves, the act of creation, the works's evolution, origins, artistic contexts, worrisome intentionalities, and at the same time — enable the work of memory and the entire array of associations concealed in it, rather than imprisoning it within a single, simplistic sense. In Arkin's oeuvre there are no untitled works. 'Namelessness' would be an antithesis to the subjective psychological aspect, being responsible for the other, which knows itself at this stage of the sculpture's 'signing and sealing'. Purposeful, caring intuition in the process, and the naming at its end, unite here in a sculpture, which is a 'signature/name' as if Arkin gave her own name and parentage, her patronage, her 'pietà' to a work for which she bears full responsibility.”

“Remembering as a process of gathering and the use of memory as a constructive force underlie Doris Arkin’s artistic production. The exhibition’s title―”Anamnesis”―is borrowed from the field of medicine. It is used by doctors and psychologists to denote the history of a patient’s current condition. In order to put together fragments of life that would shed light on their hardship by understanding its underlying causes, patients are asked about their past, about significant events and experiences, about family and social ties, and about their feelings. Some of those, possibly the most significant ones, may not be recalled, or else people may rewrite or repress them as a defense mechanism against pain. The sculptures in Arkin’s exhibition and the process of their making articulate the gathering and erasing of memories which fabricate one’s sense of self.”

“One after another, the works in “Chronicle,” a solo exhibition by Doris Arkin, begin to take their respective places in the space, some as objects that could have been placed there at random, others as outgrowths that sprawl and expand, leisurely commanding their territory. Whether sidling up shyly to the graywashed concrete walls or easing into the space allotted to them, slowly they begin to exude an echo all their own, hushed yet persistent, as a sound seemingly coming from elsewhere. The exposed space chosen by Arkin for this show presents a departure from the prim whiteness of the Zaritsky Artists’ House, Tel Aviv, where she held her previous solo exhibition, “Anamnesis,” in 2013. Already then, in a tightly- articulated series of sculptures where ragged, defiant textures where contained in curvatious forms – a recurrent theme of the show, which culminated in a mechanically-operated installation that took up an entire room – Arkin managed to express something fundamental to the task of a sculptor’s. Against the white- walled backdrop of the space, she managed to draw out the muffled tone of matter, the plaintive cry of the form that she herself had given it – just as the one that it too adheres to, of its own accord; and, ultimately, the one particular echo emitted when both are enmeshed together, locked in an evocative compound of form, materiality and image that radiates a personal experience and a story.”