LIAT YOSSIFOR
The Magical Entanglement of Poetry + Art
Art enthusiasts that also happen to enjoy poetry are in for a treat at Patron Gallery in Chicago. Los Angeles-based Israeli artist Liat Yossifor’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, titled Letters Apart, features some of her new beautiful abstract paintings next to wonderful poetry by Ed Schad.
The concept of the show is a familiar one for Yossifor. After immigrating to the US in the late 80s she would exchange handwritten letters with a childhood friend from Israel, something that helped her feel connected to her home. A similar exchange of ideas is presented in Letters Apart between the artist and writer Ed Schad. In the dialogue that takes place between their works, Schad responds to Yossifor’s paintings through his poems.
Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1974 Yossifor moved to the US as a teenager in 1989. She earned her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1996, and her MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 2002. At the time she was producing monochromatic paintings with etchings that came to life when the viewer and light were positioned correctly. However, these images are not as hidden in the newer works featured in this exhibition. These paintings are small in size, except for one large one, but they invite the viewer to come close and become immersed in the artist’s world. The gallery states that “like the exchange of memories, prose, or letters, these works speak to the weight and importance of small intimacies. They hold us together, despite the necessity of being apart at this particular moment.” Thanks to Ed Schad’s poems, viewers can become twice as immersed.
More recently, Yossifor has been inspired by the Art Informel movement (artists in the 1940s and 50s who took a different, more gestural approach to painting, distancing themselves from more traditional rules and practices within abstract painting.) She admires the work of French artist Jean Fautier and uses the impasto technique, where thick layers of paint create visible brushstrokes and a raised texture. As stated in the press release: “At large, Liat Yossifor’s practice is a manifestation of the physical body through mark-making and a meditation on emotion. Often executed in trance-like meditative states, each painting is created through layered workings and re-workings of thick, impastoed oil paint. Through this process, Yossifor creates a record of movement, of mind, and of body, and, as a result, her paintings emanate a frenetic, vibrational frequency that flows from the surface like an echo.” Yossifor has also been a resident at The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva, FL (2019), Fundación Casa Wabi, Oaxaca, MX (2020), and at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany as a guest of the Deutsche Börse Residency Program (2010)
Letters Apart opened on February 2nd and is available to view through March 20th, 2021. This is her second solo exhibition with the gallery (the first took place in 2016 and was titled A Body of Water.) Images of the works are available on the gallery’s website, and for art lovers in the Chicago area, I highly recommend you schedule a visit!
