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Izhar Patkin

Izhar Patkin's two carpet works are part of the series "Host Culture," which was exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in homage to artist Arie Aroch. Following an encounter with Arie Aroch's painting The High Commissioner (1966), which includes a quotation from a 1928 carpet given by the Iraqi Jewish community to Herbert Samuel, Patkin studied the history of Persian carpets with Jewish motifs. These works were painted using an "inverse painting" method that Patkin developed based on a folk technique: oil paint mixed with wax seeps through the back of aluminum net, creating thick paint drips whose texture resembles a weave. Both works include fragments of verses from Jewish sources ("I have set the Lord always before me" and "Love your neighbor as yourself"), which are combined with a typical Oriental design based on symmetrical doubling and reflections. The "Jewish" kilim seems to have been implanted within the Muslim-Persian weaving tradition in an attempt to produce an allegory for a possible harmony between East and West.

Born in Haifa, 1955; lives and works in New York

izharpatkin.com/