Emil Abraham’s works are filled to the brim with words and sentences, piling on top of each other at all directions forming into meaning, first person narrative, and personal confessions. It is a thick outpouring that toys with the viewer’s previous perceptions, bringing her to the well of knowledge but refusing to give any away. The works elicits different moods and feelings that blur together and make us question whether they reflect reality or personal illusions.

 

True to the cannon of Israeli painting, Abraham looks to the book and the written word for meaning, the foundation of Jewish culture. He writes and writes again until writing acquires the consistency of abstract form. His paintings are both inviting and frustrating; the viewer tries to understand the writing but it morphs into shape and color before she can decipher the message.

 

Through words Abraham investigates order, tonality, and colorfulness in his enigmatic compositions. He opens up a dialogue with the founding generations of Israeli artists such as Aviv Ori and Raphi Lavie. From them he borrows the expressive line-work, the bare and unadorned materiality, and the intensity of statement while exploring his media and texture. Abraham’s lines and the way he puts down color are charged with significance, all bowing down to the internal logic of the painting.

 

The works present landscapes that move into themselves – depth drawings that accumulate time and memories yet refuse to prescribe to any of them. Abraham fused these confessions together until they become a chonological field with no clear beginning, middle or end. It is a shapeless memory streched over the axes of time and wavering between its personal history and the viewers’.

 

Ultimately Emil Abraham’s paintings investigate the relationship between word and signifier, between phonetic and visual representation, and between sound and silence. By contracting painting into its own essence, Abraham is able to elaborate on our most sensative and vulnerable feelings, to formuate an intimate diary of his life and our own.