At the doorway to the Jerusalem Theater, you may discover a breathtaking show of oil work. The work, known as “Painting Longing” (“L’Tzayer Ga’agua” in Hebrew), shall be on show within the Sherover Foyer till February 4.
The artist is Tamar Alf, and household and associates had been invited to attend the exhibition’s elegant opening on January 8, within the presence of curator Dr. Bathsheba Aida.
Like most artists, Tamer has a narrative, and never all of it’s a completely satisfied one. Her father, Boaz Alf, labored as a programmer at Hapoalim Bank in Jerusalem’s Russian compound district and was killed in a terrorist assault in 2002.
It occurred on the quantity 32 bus on the French Hill intersection as he was on his method to work. “It was a traditional morning,” Tamer recalled. “I used to be 16 years outdated.”
She began portray on the age of 12 and began once more on the very day she emerged from a week-long mourning interval for Lord Shiva. She says that about half of the works on this exhibition had been created after October seventh.
I first met and interviewed Alf when she exhibited samples of her work on Hanukkah on the residence of President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog. The Herzog household has hosted members of One Family’s Bonim Chalom (Building the Dream) group, of which she was a member.
The group describes this system as a seven-month journey that helps bereaved siblings return to function and success, rediscovering desires which have been sidelined and turning them into sensible steps of their private, household {and professional} lives.
Alf’s feelings had been evident as he emotionally addressed the viewers on opening evening on the Jerusalem Theatre. “This is a significant second for me, and I’m completely satisfied to share it with you right here, on this place,” she stated. “Thank you for letting me encounter my work.”
Describe your life by your desires
Despite her private story, Alf stated, “I paint life, a life that features longing. It’s not all the time attainable to elucidate this elusive feeling in phrases, so I attempt to give it form with colour, measurement, location, and so forth.”
“Maybe it is time to give ‘admiration’ (gaagua) its place,” she says. “There is improvement, there may be life, there may be worth. Aspirations are for a selected particular person, for a sure time period, for previous experiences, and for issues that haven’t but come true.”
She thanked the viewers for coming and expressed gratitude to the curators and theater.
Curator Ida additionally spoke, situating the exhibition inside a broader emotional panorama. “We all dwell in a form of post-traumatic state,” she says. “Along with all Israelis, we really feel a way of loss and nostalgia for individuals who are not with us. Therefore, this exhibition has a particular try and carry us nearer to those sorts of feelings and to attach a bit extra deeply with our personal feelings.”
When I requested Alf if she felt her work modified earlier than and after her father’s demise, she quietly mirrored: “Painting is the place I specific myself – my silence, my internal world,” she stated. “It helps you make sense of issues and course of the insights that come quietly by your arms.”
She confirmed us round among the work on show. One of them is titled “Cracks within the Foundation.” It’s the sensation that issues are altering. “Everything adjustments. After one thing like that occurs, you need to rebuild your life,” she defined.
From collapse to rebirth
One of probably the most hanging pictures within the exhibit is a surprising tree. Alf revealed that he initially painted the tree black for his father on the day he rose from Lord Shiva. A couple of years later, her trainer inspired her to color in response to that picture. The consequence was two works. The first is “Tree of Renewal,” which was painted in 2017. Nearby is the Mosaic of Life, accomplished in 2025.
When requested if he outlined his work as Impressionist, Alf stated that though he acknowledged the affect of Impressionism, he had by no means consciously positioned it inside a specific inventive fashion.
In addition to the richly coloured oil work, the exhibit contains 4 charcoal drawings displayed collectively in a single nook of the lobby. In response to a query from the viewers, Alf defined, “My aim was to attract solely black and use a method known as erasure to create a determine that regularly disappears.”
On the opposite aspect of the area, 4 brightly coloured work are grouped collectively. One of them depicts the face of a woman or girl with tears operating down one aspect of her face and is titled “Remains of a Gaze.” Arouf stated that is her newest work, accomplished just some weeks earlier than the exhibition opened. She explains that the work on this group are involved with brokenness, reminiscences shifting over time, and, like her different works, longing.
When requested if there have been any lecturers or mentors who notably influenced him, he stated there have been a number of artists over time, however most not too long ago Bela Havatoskin, a gifted artist from northern Israel. It was Hvatoskin who inspired her to color in response to the black tree. “At the second I’m not learning formally,” Alf says. “I’m in search of my subsequent trainer or mentor.”
Community, create and hold shifting ahead
Alf grew up within the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem, however now lives locally village of Aron Hagalil within the Jezreel Valley. Her eyes gentle up when she talks in regards to the area. “I transfer round in that normal space,” she says. They use the Hebrew phrase nodedet, which implies “to maneuver round” (a verb used to explain being a nomad).
In the exhibition textual content, Dr. Ida says that Alf absorbed “the assembly place of the sacred and the profane, the outdated and the brand new, the close to and the distant,” noting that the open panorama and lightweight of the Jezreel Valley grew to become a supply of inspiration and new connections.
Alf has been a part of the One Family since his father was murdered. The group was based 25 years in the past through the Second Intifada by Chantal and Marc Belzberg with the intention of bringing emotional and monetary reduction to households whose lives had been shattered by terrorism and struggle.
When I requested her how the Bonim Chalom program had helped her, she paused. “Wow,” she stated. “It’s arduous to place it into phrases.” She defined that this system offered a framework and a house for the method of realizing her desires, not simply the humanities, however what led her there within the first place.
“After October 7, I grew to become deeply frozen artistically,” she stated. “In our first dialog, I stated I wished to share my artwork with the world and create extra, and the Bonim Chalom program is a superb framework to make that dream come true.” Through the steerage of program director Dan Katz, participation in small teams, and the connections she fashioned alongside the way in which, she felt the energy to maneuver ahead.
“Thanks to Bonim Chalom’s assist and encouragement, I approached varied potential places to exhibit,” she stated. “That’s how I got here to the Jerusalem Theater. As alternatives expanded, I had an obligation to create. And it was good. It’s nonetheless good. I nonetheless proceed to create with ardour, it doesn’t matter what reveals I’ve.”
In addition to portray, Alf works as an employment coordinator for Shekro Tov (All for Good), a non-profit group beneath the Ministry of Health that helps others discover significant work. Her grandparents, Jerry and Sylvia Gibraltar, had been born in Manhattan and Brooklyn and made Aaliyah in 1948. Her mom, Hila, and her sisters attended the opening of the exhibition, and her brother got here one other night. It was an emotional time for the household.
Ida writes that on this exhibition, Alf explores longing “not merely as a sense of absence, however as a necessary and persevering with presence.” Her work strikes between private and historic nostalgia, and between reminiscence and document, revealing how longing adjustments over time, from an preliminary ache to a softer, extra reconciled gaze, she says. ”
The curator stated that in her work, aspiration takes on colour, line and texture. It manifests itself by gaze and gestures, each within the inside and exterior landscapes. “Alf depicts life itself: a life imbued with aspiration, kindness and lightweight.”
After encountering Tamer Alf’s evocative work, what stays in our personal gaze is a heightened consciousness of life and longing inside our personal souls.