HAGIT SHAHAL

 Look for the thread that connects the canvases, the skin and the textures ? and you?ve found the open space of forms and contents of Hagit Shahal. True, in the postmodern era of encasings and external appearances we have already met artists of textures, and more than one woman artist who works with weave and thread, whether like Penelope or like Ariadne. But while the artists of exterior texture of the past decade sought to negate the "essence" and to leave us only in the dilemma of the slender external fiction, in the ?clothing", Hagit Shahal - in contrast - dresses up in order to expose herself. And it seems to me that she - as she comes out for the purpose of self-penetration - touches on the essential, on her own essence.
Textiles, ornamentations, patterns of tiles - the ?supporting surface", the visual infrastructure from which this painting emerges discloses everything: decorative textures. We, who have grown accustomed lately to feminist provocations in the sphere of the woman who decorates, and decorates herself, may not have recalled the linguistic parallel in Hebrew between ?kishut" (decoration) and ?kushta?, which means truth and honesty. It is also doubtful whether Hagit Shahal is aware of this lexicology, but there is no doubt that she sets out from decoration in order to arrive at the truth beyond it. Will the carpet engulf the figure on top of it, or will the woman triumph over the background? This is painting as a process of self-knowing.
Her point-of-departure, after all, is not simply any kind of decoration, but floor decorations. Her canvases - carpets, towels, etc. - lie on the ground and her self-portraits are all in a supine position. Might we say, the position of a candidate for being trampled on or run over? Or, better - shall we ignore the supine position as a state of psychoanalytic exposure that reveals the most intimate of all? After all, even the close-ups of the head, which recur in these paintings, promise us spaces for pondering, which are also hinted at in several postures of pondering. And alternately, if not contrastingly, the supine position as the position of the woman as seductress, as an erotic image of a male fantasy. Here we have the dualism... Dr. Gideon Ofrat

One-Person Exhibitions

1975 Debel Gallery, Jerusalem
1983 Sarah Levi Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1984 Tatrama Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1984 Jean-Pierre Lavignes Gallery, Paris
1985 The Israeli Artists Association, Jerusalem
1985 Sarah Levi Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1987 Gordon Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1988 Sarah Levi Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1992 Arsuf Art Gallery
1993 Nelly Aman Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1997 Neve Tsedek Gallery, Tel-Aviv
2000 Sarah Erman Gallery, Tel-Aviv
2003"French Manicure" Sarah Erman Gallery, Tel-Aviv
2003"French Manicure" Givatayim theatre

Selected Group Exhibitions

1975 Julie M. Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1976 Hakibbutz Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1980 Carpet Exhibition in the Mann Auditorium, Tel-Aviv
1984 The Israeli Artists Association, Tel-Aviv
1988 Rega Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1988 Hakikar Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1988 Haifa Museum of Modern Art
1988 "Shame", Rega Gallery, Tel-Aviv
1991 "Identity Card" (curator: Surin Heller), The Israeli Painters and Sculptors Association, Tel-Aviv
1991 Frauen Museum, Bonn, Germany
1994 "Dialog", Bad Kissingen, Germany
1994 "Meeting", Tuyap center, Istanbul
1996 "Artists, Messengers of peace", Eretz Israel Museum
2000 Salon D'automne, Grand Palais, Paris
2003 Portraits, Sarah Erman Gallery, Tel-Aviv
2003 Flowers, Sarah Erman Gallery, Tel-Aviv
2003 "Laila Schwartz", Kalisher Gallery, Tel-Aviv
2003 "Regarding Beauty", Stern Gallery, Tel Aviv