Judith Barazani

The ‘Skin of the Net’ and Iron Woman – Judith Barazani

The skin of the net is the retina, the innermost layer of tissue of the eye, sensitive to light.

Judith Barazani constructs the whole from the void, creates fullness by collecting empty spaces, connected only by a thin, flexible, winding thread, similar to a thread of thought.

Judith welds reality and creates three-dimensional objects expressing an ambivalent reality. This reality moves between being and non-being, soft and rough, fragile and resilient and between liberty and borders. This is, perhaps, how the artist views the world, and this, perhaps is how she conveys it.

The choice of material, is similar to the choice of subject matter - one points at the other, one expresses the other.

The ‘net’ was chosen as the basic material of her work. And thus, while being a physical object is used to construct and design the object, the sculpture, while serving simultaneously as a metaphor.

What, then is a net? It might be a trap made of string, a lattice. It might be the name of a system of objects arranged in winding lines; a net can be fence, a container, and presently also the media that makes the world a global village.

The net in these works is all of the above. It is the material designed and processed into the work, while maintaining all the deeper meanings deriving from the use of this material.

Figures are seen in movement when the flexible body, soft and rough, designed and airy, moves, for example between branches in a thicket, thus presenting a motion of material dialectics, between various forms of thickets. The organized thicket as opposed to the amorphous, ever-spreading thicket. This discourse points at the issue of liberty as opposed to borders. This can also be seen in the figure of a women, designed by a net, surrounded by barbed wire, a lock on her neck, resembling a necklace. In this case the net symbolizes flexibility, airiness, and liberty, in contrast to the enclosing, dangerous, sharp barbed wire. Thus the artist removes the net from its obvious connotations, leading it to new, soft, ordered and designed representations.

The subject matter of the sculptures is taken from life, the figure of a human female or animal, body parts, the head – each tells a tale, whether it is the story of the artist, or the story of the inspiration, or a story that unfolds in the viewers mind. This series of sculptures – as opposed to marble or bronze sculptures, seemingly pulls the sculpture down from the Mount Olympus of statues that glorify reality, opting for a reality connected to daily life, dull, unglamorous, but full of truth and simplicity.

Designing with nets demonstrates skill and ability, demanding meticulousness, while expressing endless freedom. Michelangelo’s often quoted phrase explained that he split, carved and designed the stone in order to revel the statue that was already there.

Judith Barazani, on her part, uses the net to wrap and capture what already exists. She encircles it on the one hand, while allowing it to breathe through peepholes or breathing holes. She creates fullness from an assortment of empty spaces.

DR.NURIT CEDERBAUM