Press and Editorial

Blackfield

17 March 2008
Louise Schwartzkoff

» View Blackfield exhibition

With a flick of his fingers, Zadok Ben-David can make objects vanish, then reappear. The Israeli artist's sleight of hand draws gasps of astonishment at dinner parties, and in art galleries, where his work fuses sculpture with magic; tables float above the ground and figures sit on air.

In his latest Sydney installation, Blackfield, Ben-David uses a simple visual trick. On the top floor of the Annandale Galleries, he has planted 5000 stainless steel flowers in a bed of white sand.

The floral silhouettes, no more than a few centimetres high, are painted black on one side. The viewer's first glimpse is of a vast, dark garden. But circle around to the other side and the work becomes a riot of blues, pinks, yellows, purples and greens.

"It's a metaphor for human behaviour and feeling," Ben-David says. "In hard times, it's easy to see the world as black and depressing ... But with a little effort, if we view things from a different angle, we can find the same world much more positive and optimistic."

It took Ben-David and an army of assistants six months to draw, cut and paint 5000 tiny flowers. Among the thousands, there are 900 different species, each drawn in perfect detail from a botanical encyclopaedia.

This is not Ben-David's first steel garden, but it is his biggest. His last floral installation contained no more than 3000 pieces.

The work will sell in a series of "magic mirror boxes", from $37,500. The flowers multiply in infinite reflections on the boxes' mirrored walls. "The illusion is far stronger than I expected," Ben-David says. "Most people walk behind the mirror to try and see what is going on."

Such simple illusions have fascinated Ben-David since he saw his first magic show in London. "Coming from Israel, I had never come across a magician before. He was vanishing things and, by chance, my eyes managed to catch how he did it. From that moment, I was hooked," he says.

He delights in making sculptures that seem impossible, but sometimes envies painters their freedom from the laws of physics. "If a painter wants to toss a figure in the air, they just draw a horizon, then paint a man flying in the sky. As a sculptor, you have to deal with gravity, and all those other practical restrictions."

As an artist-magician, Ben-David is unusual. But he believes all artists are illusionists. The tricks painters use to show depth and perspective are just another kind of magic.

"Look at the Renaissance painters," he says. "They used their knowledge of illusion to create paintings that were close to photography. The better their illusions, the more their flat canvases sprung into reality.

"Sometimes, you need a big, successful lie to come to a kind of truth. In my sculptures, I'm using those visual lies to create a sense of wonder, surprise and mystery."

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» View Blackfield exhibition

With a flick of his fingers, Zadok Ben-David can make objects vanish, then reappear. The Israeli artist's sleight of hand draws gasps of astonishment at dinner parties, and in art galleries, where his work fuses sculpture with magic; tables float above the ground and figures sit on air.

In his latest Sydney installation, Blackfield, Ben-David uses a simple visual trick. On the top floor of the Annandale Galleries, he has planted 5000 stainless steel flowers in a bed of white sand.

The floral silhouettes, no more than a few centimetres high, are painted black on one side. The viewer's first glimpse is of a vast, dark garden. But circle around to the other side and the work becomes a riot of blues, pinks, yellows, purples and greens.

"It's a metaphor for human behaviour and feeling," Ben-David says. "In hard times, it's easy to see the world as black and depressing ... But with a little effort, if we view things from a different angle, we can find the same world much more positive and optimistic."

It took Ben-David and an army of assistants six months to draw, cut and paint 5000 tiny flowers. Among the thousands, there are 900 different species, each drawn in perfect detail from a botanical encyclopaedia.

This is not Ben-David's first steel garden, but it is his biggest. His last floral installation contained no more than 3000 pieces.

The work will sell in a series of "magic mirror boxes", from $37,500. The flowers multiply in infinite reflections on the boxes' mirrored walls. "The illusion is far stronger than I expected," Ben-David says. "Most people walk behind the mirror to try and see what is going on."

Such simple illusions have fascinated Ben-David since he saw his first magic show in London. "Coming from Israel, I had never come across a magician before. He was vanishing things and, by chance, my eyes managed to catch how he did it. From that moment, I was hooked," he says.

He delights in making sculptures that seem impossible, but sometimes envies painters their freedom from the laws of physics. "If a painter wants to toss a figure in the air, they just draw a horizon, then paint a man flying in the sky. As a sculptor, you have to deal with gravity, and all those other practical restrictions."

As an artist-magician, Ben-David is unusual. But he believes all artists are illusionists. The tricks painters use to show depth and perspective are just another kind of magic.

"Look at the Renaissance painters," he says. "They used their knowledge of illusion to create paintings that were close to photography. The better their illusions, the more their flat canvases sprung into reality.

"Sometimes, you need a big, successful lie to come to a kind of truth. In my sculptures, I'm using those visual lies to create a sense of wonder, surprise and mystery."

« Back to main press page



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