Mixed Emotions

Nir Hod

Although this work belongs to a body of paintings that examines the triad youth-love-death, it stands out in Hod's oeuvre because it is based on a newspaper photograph, rather than on a photograph directed and produced by the artist. The event captured in this image is portrayed with uncanny precision and formal restraint; it is revealed from within an enormous wreath, and unfolds before the viewer's eyes in larger-than-life dimensions. In this painting, Hod has masterfully encapsulated the body language of human pain, whose universal aspects extend far beyond its local context.

Nir Hod was born in Tel Aviv, 1970. The painting Lost Youth was recently included work in his solo exhibition "Forever" at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2005), and in the exhibition "The New Hebrews: A Century of Art in Israel" at the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin. He lives and works in New York.