SCULTURE DA INDOSSARE
Orna Ben-Ami
02/04/2019 – 24/05/2019
The exhibition, curated by Ermanno Tedeschi, focuses on the “wearable sculptures” created exclusively for the gallery by the Israeli artist. The work of Orna Ben-Ami is characterized by the lightness with which it treats a heavy material like iron, making it so soft and extremely delicate.
“I repeat to myself that it is cloth, not iron”. The artist bends this material to his will, using it as a “visual metaphor” to represent his precise vision of the world. The iron expresses the desire to hold firmly to the identity that the object represents, making it eternal and significant as a metal monument. In his artistic expression, Orna Ben-Ami has “immortalized” in iron, just like in a photographic shot, ordinary objects of everyday life: some books stacked, a child’s apron, a cushion still imprinted with the silhouette of those who slept there…all objects that tell something about their old absent owner, the artist or ourselves.
In his wise hands, iron is capable, with the power of transmutation, of giving shape to dreams and unrealized hopes in real life. The jewel represents an important antecedent of this human and creative journey. Orna was born in fact as an artist of jewelry, he learns the techniques of goldsmith, along with those of iron smelting, at the Jerusalem Technological Center. From there, begins the creative process that will then culminate in sculpture, and in the creation of works of art exhibited in public and private places around the world. In this artist more than in others, it is easy to guess then the bond not only conceptual, but also executive that unites work and jewel. In some of the ornamental creations created for BABS Art Gallery, such as the “The Note” brooch or the “Embroidery” pendant, traces of the same sculptural shapes are found, which were later merged into the important artistic project “Entire Life in a Package”. To confirm his skills as a goldsmith and “welder”, the artist has preferred for his jewelry forging technique of silver and copper, which he completed the processing with gold castings, nylon and metal wires, as for the brooch “Patchwork”or through the live burnishing of the material itself. The jewels of Orna are real works of art chiseled with mastery and to wear with great simplicity.