Seeing Me, Seeing You

"I hold that the perfection of form and beauty is contained in the sum of all men."
-- Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Hagit Shahal, a seasoned artist who has exhibited extensively, focuses her gaze in the current exhibition on the portrait. Occupying a significant part of her oeuvre, her portraits now receive apt exposure. In these works Shahal continues an age-old tradition of portraiture: from time immemorial artists have explored human intricacy, the choreography of body language as a mirror to the hidden facets of the human soul. Furthermore, the depicted figure provides a look into the artist's own life and character.

The exhibition "Seeing Me, Seeing You" embraces a wide range of aspects in the portraiture genre. The artist's preoccupation with object-subject relationship raises and reinforces several questions: Who is the observer and who is the observed, who is the viewer and who is being viewed? How does one perceive himself, and what is one's attitude to one's own portrait? How does the artist perceive herself, and in what way is her figure perceived by the viewer?

Close scrutiny of Shahal's entire oeuvre reveals a fascinating, intense body of work, the product of consistent practice, which reflects the human portrait and its various strata. The works confront different modes of figure representation, exploring the constant tension between internal and external essence. They capture a moment, a state of mind, reconstructing and preserving a memory, and all of them manifest – more or less explicitly – the sensuousness raging above and below the surface.

Shahal's work corresponds with documentation and perpetuation, as well as with a female discourse. She wanders between different eras and trends – from Abstract Expressionist painting to Pop Art and Super-Realism. The gaps between high art and low art become blurred.

The exhibition features four different aspects of portraiture: commissioned portraits, portraits initiated by the artist, self-portraits, and portraits painted for the press.

The work on commissioned portraits begins with the artist's meeting with the model. Throughout the encounter, in the course of conversation and impression gathering, she photographs the model. In the multiple photographs, which will later serve as raw material for the work, the figure's various features, his body language and unique personality traits are captured. All these will be studied and explored in the studio intimately, in front of the photographs. Internalization of the figure's presence occurs in a process that synchronously blends the moments frozen by the camera with the living, personal impressions. "I feel as though I am a conduit through which information travels, blending and uniquely processed," the artist discloses.

A deconstruction and reconstruction of the figure, exploration of the facial features and expressions, exposure of the fine mannerisms – all these are part of the process of discovery and approximation of the figure's authenticity. Thus, in the portrait of Dr. Rudi, for example, the psychologist is seen with his brow furrowed in thought, his head leaning on his hand, his eyes observing piercingly; his figure is close, non-formalist, and the background lends it a dramatic air.

The work on these portraits is not executed from a critical point of view, or in an attempt to "peel" layers from the figure. The artist's gaze is fully conscious of the work's purpose – to reflect the face and personality of the depicted subject in a "flattering," representative manner, and in order to do so, she must set boundaries and employ self-discipline. Above all, however, it is Shahal's uncompromising commitment to her unique painterly style that is at work here. The act of painting is always performed with a proficient hand that generates a colorful, dynamic tension and high plastic qualities.

Exposure of the portrait to the depicted subject is always a dramatic, difficult moment. The latter's self image – countenance, reflection, gaze – does not always correspond with his portrait as reflected in the assembly of gazes which the artist has refined and encapsulated. The model is first invited to view his painted portrait in the company of someone close to him who can contribute his view, the way in which the model is reflected in his eyes.

Portraits initiated by the artist are portraits of people from the artists close and more distant circles. In these works an encounter occurs between internal and external reality, and the experiences become refined in the course of their exposure and processing in the painterly process. In this instance too, the artist takes numerous photographs, but these works are distinguished by freedom and daring uncharacteristic of the commissioned works. This independence from obligation to the painterly object furnishes the artist with total freedom of action, and here she indeed paints as she sees and feels. This freedom is distinctively manifested in the portrait of her aging mother – seated or reclining, her glasses are blurred and obscure (possibly an allusion to weakened eyesight), and her figure which is wholly alert – even the glass in her hand is tipped slightly – conveys a tension between the body's age and the vivacity of the soul. Discernible in this group of works are the sense of three-dimensionality and the tension between the figure and the background coloration. The bodily postures are less "traditional," and the treatment of the face is freer and more spontaneous.

The self-portrait has accompanied Shahal through many periods in her work. Expressive portraits with an erotic flavor; a self-portrait that changes identities, oscillating between sensuality and a-sensuality. Shahal expands the female definition, while the affinity to Abstract Expressionist painting, to American Pop, and to documentary photography echoes in the background.

In 1992 Shahal presented an exhibition in Arsuf Art Gallery dedicated solely to self-portraits. The series included close-ups of her face on large-scale canvases. Expressive images of female beauty conveying sensuality and vitality alongside pain and loneliness, on a surface of sensuous colorful ornamentalism. It is staged painting of the artist as a model expropriated from its existence as a subject, transformed into an object.

A series of black-and-white drawings created at a later stage features a concise representation of the figure: the figure of the artist lying naked on the carpet, face and body blurred and concealed, against the backdrop of rich ornamental texture. This psychological portrait deliberates between the eye's aspiration to delve further in, and the urge to conceal and blur the penetrating gaze.

Like many other artists, Shahal returns to the self-portrait repeatedly during different periods of work, in a type of intricate quest into the essence, identity, moods and mindsets. The processed contents are preserved in "memory windows," and will later recur in various paintings.

Portraits painted for Yedioth Ahronoth are Shahal's best known group of paintings: every week for three years she depicted one of the prominent figures in politics and culture – the portrait of a person with whom the media engaged during that week. Thus a mass of works gradually cumulated, which crystallized into a group portrait of sorts – the profile of a society. Once a week Shahal received from the newspaper's archive photographs of the figure she was asked to depict. Unlike an illustration intended to be incorporated in an article and refer to its contents, here the artist did not receive any content-related information. As a point of departure for the painting she used only the photographs and her subjective impressions of the figure to be portrayed.

These portraits have a quintessential sketchy character, and they are strewn with swift, vivid color stains: the short time allotted for the work – often a deadline of only three hours – demands accurate work and high technical proficiency, disallowing inquisitive scrutiny into the subject's character and personality. Nevertheless, this intense, quick process often spawned impressive results.

Politicians, generals, artists – the shapers of Israeli society – alongside family and friends, all look at us from the exhibition space, observing and being observed, revealed to us in all their being within the visual theater of the artist's making, looking directly at the viewer, forcing him to look them straight in the eye.

Irit Levin, Curator of the Exhibition