Exhibition in Brooches, 2019, Omri Goren

Printed oil painting, patinated brass, traditional goldsmithing techniques

Who

Omri Goren, b. 1980

Why

“I’ve created a series of brooches that combine paintings by my grandfather with my silversmithing work. The dialogue between us gives rise to a joint exhibition, curated within a brooch.
The idea for this work emerged in 2003 at Bezalel – I created five clothing outfits based on my grandfather’s paintings. I took the paintings themselves off the wall and cut them, while also using the original frames. The idea was to award him the recognition that he had never received (he died in 1997). We had a complex relationship, and our best moments of communication were on Saturday mornings, when we went together to view art exhibitions at Yad Labanim in Petah Tikva, and returned home to paint oil paintings on canvas. I wanted to paint models dressed in different fashions, while he insisted that I paint ‘authentic’ people, vases and flowers.
I later returned to this theme from a different, more mature and understanding perspective. This time the paintings were reprinted on canvas, and were set in specially created metal constructions so that they could be enclosed within my work – in a brooch. Today, my focus is on our reciprocal influence on one another, an inter-generational collaboration that offers different views of life… It was important for me to ‘include’ him, to ‘intervene’ in his painterly themes in the context of my work today, and thus also to ‘update’ him.”

On display at the Rothschild Gallery, Tel Aviv Biennale of Crafts & Design, MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.