In the exhibition On the Seam, Hila Karabelnikov Paz disassembles and reassembles images – fragment by fragment, stitch by stitch – to document moments of her life in Israel’s national-religious society. In Behind the Partition, she is portrayed sitting beside her female family members in the women’s section of the Great Synagogue in Mazkeret Batya during her son’s Bar-Mitzvah ceremony. The work attends to the mother’s role and to her emotions, emphasizing the partition separating her from her adolescent son as he symbolically enters the world of men and of Halakhic commandments.
Karabelnikov Paz uses simple, disposable materials such as masking tape and wallpaper, while finding inspiration in elements familiar to her from her childhood in Bnei Brak – such as stickers, pashkevils, and disposable dishes. So, for instance Spring features a soft-drink bottle of the kind served at celebrations and family meals in religious society. The bottle contains a single flower, an individual detail in a society that appears uniform and is characterized by an emphasize on togetherness and community.
Parallel to the collaging of masking tape and wallpaper, Karabelnikov Paz uses an additional technique – freehand embroidery. Both techniques, collage and embroidery, are featured in the exhibition, and both are created in a similar manner: she initially draws the scene in pencil, and then painstakingly collages or embroiders a colorful top layer. Collage and embroidery do not allow for mixing colors. However, a careful selection of colors creates an illusion of depth, light and shade that approximates Impressionist brushstrokes.
The display of two colorful embroidery works – Pashkevils and Headdresses – one across from the other gives expression go gender-related tensions and social conventions. Headdresses, which was created especially for the exhibition, combines two 18th– 19th century headdresses from the collection of the Jewish Culture and Folklore Pavilion. They are hidden within an assortment of contemporary headdresses in various colors, which are used by the artist and her sisters in everyday life. Employing a range of materials and the techniques of collage and embroidery, she creates a singular language that cuts across religious, gender-related, and intergenerational boundaries and conventions.
