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FRESHPAINT 2023 - WOMAN IN RED

Curator: Dr. Guy Morag Tzepelewitz; Artistic Mentoring Keren Shpilsher

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"I disassemble, empty, unravel and reassemble, in a constant movement of small, patient and delicate connections, a laborious women's craft, the women's language of the past.

This is how I revive old material, connect the small details to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, embroider the fabric of my life, give birth and create my contemporary new me."

Debbie Oshrat

 

As a daughter of a Holocaust survivor parents, Debbie Oshrat's life was deeply affected by the number that was tattooed on her mother’s hand in Auschwitz concentration camp in WW2. The sight of the aging arm sent Oshrat on a search for a material that would resemble the texture and the coloration of the aging skin of her mother, and in addition would allow her to touch and loosen the "bond of silence" related to the Holocaust.

Oshrat weaves stories on Teabags. She draws, writes, paints, and embroiders on used tea bags. In doing so, she revives old material and corresponds with the craft world, ancient female crafts that echo the language of the "Great Mother", and turns them into symbols of a contemporary, topical, live, and kicking world.

In the exhibition "Woman in Red", Oshrat presents to the audience three new bodies of work that deal with disassembly and reassembly of her "self". She continues the repetitive-ritual sewing craft, in which there is a motif of repair and connection of what was meant to be disintegrated, as well as the fusion of what was torn in the past. Embroidery and sewing as the repair of the body and soul are fundamental principles in her works.

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The first series deals with "anatomy", the breakdown of the whole body into fragments. Body parts floating in space that will later meet, heal, and unite.

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The second series deals with the 13 crystal skulls, which the artist equates to the 13 ancient mothers of the tribe. According to the belief of the Mayan culture, the mothers of the tribes represent the 13 tribes of humanity, and all their wisdom is stored inside the crystal skulls.

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In the third series, Oshrat represents her "new self". In three-dimensional works she infuses new blood and energies, and in the last work she grows wings and flies towards freedom.