In her exhibition "Lime Green World" at the Periscope Gallery, Karin Zur presents a body of works composed of two series that express the pursuit of nature.

The work process began with careful observation of the plant world in an attempt to simulate elementary particles of a plant in nature: "I wanted to understand how they connect to each other, not in the conventional picture of brunches, leaves and flowers, but in the perception of a world in which particles multiply themselves, always appear in whole, grow and change," she says. “The closer we look, we see more and more details, but the general shape does not change. Nature and its forms are infinite, not random, repeating accurately, in many different levels of size."

Zur uses clay as a material in her work. The work began with the creation of modus with a similar basic structure, meticulously arranged in detail and sculptural elements. In her spatial perception of nature, Zur built works that "grow from the ground" upwards. These works have an architectural structure reminiscent of a tall cactus pillar or plant. At first glance, each pillar looks like a whole plant. From close up, the plant is composed of sections. Each section is a whole in itself, containing repeated and changing forms, sometimes in the same section, sometimes from one section to another. Each plant that Karin Zur builds from clay composed of forms that although very similar they never repeat themselves precisely.

 

The color palette that Zur uses to create her objects constitute a research of colored glazes that yield every few years, complex series characterized by strong and extinct colors. In the current exhibition, she decided to remove a large part of the color distribution in favor of a monochromatic master palette of black, white, lime green and electric blue.

It seems that the whole process of creation draws a relationship between the finite and the infinite: on one hand, the repetitive creation of hundreds of particles oscillates between their final dimensions, and between construction and division that ends with complete work. On the other hand, repetition creates variations and reefs of more of the same as a means of achieving the goal, of extension and expansion.

The "growing down" series of works is composed of a combination of ceramic elements and textiles. The objects are animated by exotic flowering plants with long tongues, tendrils dangling and twisting from the ceiling down. The connection between the hard material and the soft is formed by an amorphous joining that also recalls vegetative images, coral, or tropical plants.

A lime green world is an expression of the world that despite its artificiality marks the cruelty inherent in nature. An image of carnivorous plants growing and taking over and feeding on each other.

 

Along with the image of tropical forest and coral reefs, stands the image of the cactus, which anchors Karin's works in the local context in which she operates. Her work opens up the possibility of discussing the local-cultural context in which she creates and responds to her, as well as the act of violent exclusion from this context. We are faced with objects resembling a cactus, an Israeli image, or, more precisely, an image that has been appropriated as such. The cacti do not appear in their natural colors, but in monochromatic colors in a kind of none color, which emphasize the act of erasing the natural context and copying it into the sphere of creation.

The creation of the inanimate nature of Zur presents a mirror to nature while playing an exciting game of tracing, distancing, zooming, copying and changing. A colorful and piercing creation of nature in its own right.

 

Photography by Elad Baranga