“Look, it cannot be seen,

So it is called invisible.

Listen, it cannot be heard,

So it is called soundless.

Touch, it cannot be caught,

So it is called elusive.

…

Above it there is no light,

Below it there is no darkness.

 

 

- Lao Tse, Book of Tao, Chapter 14,

translated by Stefan Stenudd

 

 

In our search for meaning we often look to silence for the answer. Within the noise and chaos of everyday life, we yearn to find our private island of peace and quite.  Silence, unlike censorship, is a place from which we can create, a place from which we can think and analyze. Oftentimes we wonder if inner peace is at all achievable inside our tumultuous lives.

 

“Our deepest and most personal realizations arrive at times when our consciousness is completely still… This silence is an inexhaustible reservoir, the place of origin for all works of art and literature that move us, because from this emptiness we encounter endless possibilities”[1] Even after we have found silence, we wonder if we can cope with it. Silence is oftentimes alarming or wearisome. But in certain situations, when life becomes overly complicated or we experience intense moments, we seek to isolate ourselves in the silence of our own thoughts.

 

This exhibition, ‘Maybe Monday maybe Tuesday,’ deals with the subject of silence from the perspective of eleven artists. Each work has moments of quiet and meditation within them, hoping to inspire for the viewer the experience that the artists feel during the moments of creation.

 

Orit Tuchman Duer’s oil painting envelops us in its yellow field.  Its peaceful outer layer obscures a fierce and seething interior hidden within, threatening to disturb our quiet.

 

“Depths” by Talia Tokatly, is a work in progress and part of her series “Abyss.” It is a term that for her means the opposite of floating. Describing her work, she says, “for me it means a safe space, a place of heavy and secure quietness.”

 

In Yonatan Zofi’s works we can see a relationship to the Japanese concept of “Ma,” most commonly understood as negative space or non-form. “Ma” is present in all aspects of life. In drawings it is the white spaces that balance and interact with the areas the artist has drawn.

 

Yehudit Schreiber has been photographing underground for the past years. Her motivation in dealing with underground spaces comes from her national as well as personal history – her brother sailed away with the INS Dakar submarine that was lost at sea in 1968. The subjects that occupy her work are the beginning and end of life. Through describing emotional experiences, her works question relationships of space and time, closeness and distance. The underground element of her photos intensifies these dynamics and allows us to flow between fiction and reality, beginning and end, history and future.

 

Avivit Ballas Barnes approaches silence from the perspective of the hearing impaired. Hearing is a major component of our ability to communicate, and loss of hearing has a significant effect on our language, cognitive, and social patterns. In her pieces, Avivit transforms the movement of voice into visual image.