Dorit Saphir
Selected exhibitions
"Ink Animal and Color Field", solo exhibition
Artists' House, Tel Aviv, 2025
Curators, Irit Levin, Dr. Dorit Kader
Dorit Sapir lives in ink and a field of color
By Irit Levin
Dorit Sapir's exhibition "Ink Animal and Paint Field" at the Tel Aviv Artists' House has two faces: quick and refined ink drawings of animals, and abstract and expressive paint works. Sapir studied architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan and the Technion in Haifa, and film and television at Tel Aviv University. She has written and directed documentaries for Israeli television. Film and architecture find expression in her abstract work, and architectural drawing finds expression in her figurative work. Her teachers for painting and drawing were the artists John Beale and Harold Rubin at the Tel Aviv Artists' House. Beale fostered creativity and taught his students ways of working with paint in abstract painting based on personal associations. Rubin – a painter, musician and architect – instilled in his students values in drawing such as a personal connection to the subject of the painting, avoiding automatic actions, and giving up on precise scale. Drawing in ink on paper in a small format, the artist captures animals in motion, immortalizing them on the surface with concise lines, with vitality and in a drawing that sometimes looks like a silhouette. The skeletal, basic and primitive are preserved in the lines of the works, and they recall cave paintings, a subject she has dealt with extensively. "In my work, energy and movement come to expression. People, dogs and wild animals are drawn in motion, and the rapid drawing helps to convey the energy. The dogs are frequently present in my work and are sometimes drawn from observation, memory or imagination," says the artist, who works extensively on behalf of abandoned animals. The abstract acrylic works are influenced by music, which is translated onto paper in a colorful rhythm: dynamics between spots, transparencies, shades, paint strokes and engravings. Rhythms of pigment and form come together in freehand painting in compositions of contrasts – sometimes dramatic, sometimes lyrical. The works contain moments of calm and storm.
The Ink Beast and a Crowded Field
Dr. Dorit Kader
The ink animal is captured in profile, walking slowly, staggering forward, lower limbs missing, facial features unformed, born in a flash, leaving speckled traces, submissive or cooperating with absolute whiteness, imprisoned or free in the bowels of nothingness. (By its nature - without boundaries), moving and moving in order to live. As an existential paradox - its life is a partner in the paintings of the fields of color, filled without boundaries: color is bustling, unfolding, shrinking, integrating, unburdening, corresponding, vibrating, decisive, captivating... Like an animal, a field devoid of space and time - the conditions of existence. The artist, Dorit Sapir, in two different visual expressions (minimalism and maximalism) tries to escape the shackles of everyday life, perhaps, out of basic wisdom, consciously or unconsciously, building worlds with their own laws, in them - nothingness and fullness of co-destinies.
"Dorit Sapir: Animal in Ink and a Field of Color, at the Artists' House in Tel Aviv", Portfolio, February 12, 2025
Two lectures will be held as part of the exhibition.
Dr. Dorit Kadar, "Nothingness and Fullness", February 19, 2025
Ziva Kurt, on Dorit Sapir's exhibition, March 3, 2025
"On the Border", the Second Biennial of Drawing
Group exhibition
Artists' House, Rishon LeZion, 2025
Curators, Leah Topper and Jennifer Bloch
This exhibition is the second chapter in the series of the Biennale of Drawing at the Artists' House in Rishon LeZion. This time, the second Biennale of Drawing refers to the concept of the border. A problematic concept in culture and art. A border, in its simplest sense, is a line or barrier, which marks the end of one thing and the beginning of another. On the border is a multi-meaning concept that can refer to states of transition, a threshold, which seeks to break clear answers. The concept can be expressed in an unacceptable sense, on the border that separates the present, existence without existence – on the seam line between it and something else. The meaning of the concept of the border is broad and changing, referring to the state of a place that is very close to the border, on the border line is in a state of transition or lack of clear definition. It emphasizes the dynamism and potential inherent in crossing borders, searching for new languages and challenging existing conventions. The concept of on the border allows us to break through the known and familiar realm, and can refer to a work that does not need to be limited by laws and conventions, materials and techniques. The concept emphasizes the infinite potential of creativity. At the same time, it is complex to exploit this potential, there is something threatening, dangerous here, it takes us out of our comfort zone. Some of the works operate on the border in a conceptual sense and not in a physical / material / technical sense, hence the difficulty in distinguishing it. In this exhibition, the aim is to create a situation in which the artists test their limits in various sectors of drawing. Most often, these are testing personal, emotional, formal, material and conceptual boundaries. Sometimes in nuance, sometimes with intensity. The term on the border expresses the difficulty of maintaining a balance between crossing the border and maintaining it, this difficulty creates tension and interest. Does the exhibition respond to the concept / idea? The answer is a work that will be subjective and personal. Whether we address the concept of the exhibition or not, the drawing itself will always remain, in its content and the experience it gives the viewer. Curators Leah Topher and Jennifer Bloch
"Bird / Variations", group exhibition
The Water Institute, Givatayim Municipal Gallery, 2020
Curator, Irit Levin
Bird / Variations
By Irit Levin
The exhibition "Bird/Variations" features twenty-six artists from several generations whose work features the bird motif. Birds connect the worlds of the lower and upper, appear in cultures and myths as possessing magical powers, and unite the world of the living and the dead. Among the birds that appear in the works: heron, bulbul, sparrow, tern, stork, dove, nahlieli, eagle, crow, raven, crane, release, turn, breath. The images of birds appear in the works in diverse contexts: poetry, literature, philosophy, mythology, science and biographical aspects. Some works were created from observing a stay in nature, others were translated from personal photographs, and some are based on images taken from bird descriptors and nature books, or were engraved in the minds of the creators from psychological and Gothic studies. Several works by the artists in the exhibition bring together contrasts: the roar of a flock alongside a solitary sound, acceleration and leap alongside freezing and static, dramatic alongside comic, figuration of Imagery alongside abstraction, silence alongside storm, expressive expressions alongside raw lines. The works are in a variety of techniques: drawing, painting, sculpture, print, photography, mixed media, collage.
Invitation to a gallery talk