In order to celebrate the beginning of the fifth exhibitions’ season, ESH Gallery is pleased to present “ESH VEADAMÀ. FIRE AND EARTH. Contemporary Craft from Israel”. The exhibition represents the chance to dive into the many shades of Israeli contemporary craft.

Then it is the right occasion to explain to the public the gallery’s name; ESH in Jewish means fire. From ceramic to glass, from metal to contemporary jewelry, the group exhibition celebrates Israel landscapes and the colors of the Middle East. Those are the elements that mainly inspired the artists, and the fire is the living and the primordial element, necessary to create.

With this event, enquiring the traditional techniques and their contemporary reinterpretation, ESH Gallery wants to point out the contemporary languages of Israel through the artworks of four artists. Even if using different materials, they became in dialogue creating interesting connections.

The exhibition title has also a cabalistic interpretation. The word “ESH” (fire) is in the incipit of the Old Testament, bereshit, commonly translate in “in the beginning”: it is the beginning of the creation, the spark, the word that describes the Big Bang!

ADAMÀ is the earth that has to be shaped: God shapes the earth and through it He creates Adam, the first man. The man would be only DAM (blood), but thanks to God (the Aleph) and his breath, he comes alive and becomes ADAM; it is the divine presence in the human being. Esh and Adamà are also connected in the artist character, who for the ancient Jewish tradition, it is inspired and guided by God. When God chose Bezalel – the first artist who built the Ark of the Covenant in order to contain the Tablets of Stone, he was said to be highly gifted as a workman and endowed with divine inspiration, wisdom and intuition for any kind of work. We like to think that the Esh Veadamà exhibition’s artists are heirs of Bezalel.

Naama Haneman graduated at Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and at The Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture & Design (CASS) of London.

She works with metal, considered as the only material who can match together art and design. Specifically, the silver, a flexible and malleable material, is used by the artist to create vases recalling the nature. The surfaces of her works are characterized by a soft movement, creating a dialogue between visible and invisible.

Michal Fargois an Israeli ceramist who lives and works in Berlin.

What strikes about her works is the innovative technique that is used for covering the surfaces of the earthenware and stoneware vases. Those are characterized by raw and imperfect shapes – recalling the ones that she saw during her childhood. Then her shapes are peculiar for a fabric-like texture, and are standing out for the bright colors too.

Her artworks are covered with synthetic fibers, misleading the viewer’s tactile and visual perception: playing with a material that is commonly stiff, but in this case turning it as a soft one.

In 2019 Fargo’s intriguing artwork has been selected as one of the 28 world-wide finalists of the prestigious Loewe Craft Prize.

At “ESH VEADAMÀ. Fire and Earth” will be also shown some Simcha Even-Chen’s artworks: she is an award-winning ceramist, already presented at ESH Gallery during the “Equilibrium”exhibition.

She is interested in geometry and in the use of rakutechnique, creating abstract sculptures interesting for their relationship with the space. Her artworks are part of some important museum public collections.

One of the most interesting languages is the one of the young artist Daniella Saraya. Her epoxy and minerals jewels are the result of a research who recalls the colors of the Israeli’s ground, the layering of materials and a thought on human experience.

The exhibition creates the chance to have a glimpse of the evolution of the Israeli contemporary art, without boundaries between art, design and craft.

All the languages presented at the exhibition based their research on the concepts of space and nature, with different aesthetic visions though.

The exhibition will be part of the first edition of Milano Jewelry Week organized by Artistar Jewels.