2024, acrylic, plaster, colored sand from Mitzpe Ramon, empty chamber indicator, military rope, flannelette, and fans, varying sizes.

In the F.R installation, Tamar Hecht created a system of sculptures that combines time and space, calling up memories from the time of her army service in the open desert. Part-autobiography and part-imagination, the installation ties between contemplation with aesthetic dynamics. It links merchandise from Allenby street shops in the nearby area with new sculptures; and works of heat-bent acrylic sheets with moldings made of plaster and Mitzpe Ramon colored sand. From her close circles, Hecht draws not only material inspiration, but also a world of imagery into which she pours personal, intimate dimensions.

Her work process includes various aspects of playing with materials, shapes, colors, and textures – first freedom and intuition, and then reasoned inquiry and selection – much like the inherent tension of the military experience, between freedom and obedience. Through the vehicle’s windows, as through the translucent sculptures, the materials that Hecht employs open up a range of meanings and cultural associations. The gaze travels through the windows of an armored vehicle, a military helicopter, or a car on its way to a holiday in Eilat or Mitzpe Ramon; it breaks over the scenery seen through them like the warped acrylic, and toys with the perception of reality. Transparency becomes distortion and a window becomes an obstacle; together, they offer a different view on the past. Like natural geological strata, Hecht’s layers of colored sand recreate a substrate that buries a cypher – a sort of key to a puzzle or opaque hieroglyphic; a riddle of the Sphinx posed both to the exhibition’s audience and to the artist herself.

Curators: Judith Ennis and Daphne Stern

photography: Yuval Hay