The origin of the word “ornamentation” derives from the Latin word “ornare,” meaning not only to decorate and embellish but also to arrange and organize. Since the dawn of civilization, decoration has expressed the basic need to embed a human esthetic dimension by reorganizing existing things.
Ornamentation can be classified into three aspects; shape – the decorations carrying repetitive patterns; Purpose – the pieces are meant to display the beauty of something larger, not independent of themselves but submissive to the ideas they beautify; Perspective – to delight the viewer, the pieces create a visual and esthetic tranquility and thus induce a pleasant satisfying atmosphere.
Showcased in this exhibition, artist Maiyan Ben Yona has been working on this new realm of decorations for the last couple years. Her goal has been to examine what happens to an ornament when decorative shapes exceed the surface of the ornament; consuming its function.
In her first solo exhibition this exhibition, Maiyan takes the decoration patterns she uses in her pieces, removes them from the surface of the vessels they have decorated, and gives them three-dimensional life, sometimes as its own independent vessel and sometimes as a three-dimensional decoration adorning a vessel.
With this act of disassembling and rebuilding, she changes the shapes of common objects and creates new lively and character-filled objects that bring an inviting world of vagrancy. This artificial world, seemingly frozen-in-time but also constantly in motion, invites the beholder to disconnect from the external world and to soak themselves within the objects, the patterns, and the three-dimensional decorations which bring unique character and personality.
Following this method, the objects displayed return to nature, a return expressed both in their rounded shapes and in the natural colors of the materials they are made of – the naturally white porcelain and black clay. Additionally, a tension is formulated between the delicacy of the porcelain and the both rawness and roughness of the clay.
The exhibition presents an artificial world that invites the viewer to wander between the ornament objects, observe them closely and dive into their details, follow the seemingly frozen-in-time objects and decipher their structure while pondering on the artistic process of turning a two-dimensional pattern into a three-dimensional one.
Curator: Galina Arbeli
- Knesset Advances Motion To Disband, Moving Toward 4th Elections In 2 Years
- THE JEWISH VOTE: POLITICAL SELF-DESTRUCTION
