Ruth Facktorovich | רות פקטורוביץ

As an artist who works in the medium of glass, combined with print, photography and installation, I bring glass art closer to the field of contemporary art. Glass allows me to work with a material that has a kind of humility and weightlessness. It does not call to its presence but absorbs, reflects and transmits light. Glass knows how to accept any texture and resemble other materials, can transform from transparent to opaque, and thus constitutes an ideal medium to enable contemplation and inner reflection.

At the same time, the connection between glass sculpture, print and photography allows me to relate to real past memories and specific narratives. The installation is the way in which the works connect and correspond with the space, reflect it and respond to it. In this way, I find a way to combine the worlds: between past memories and a universal and abstract feeling, and the present experience of the visitors to the exhibition.

My works are made in series or from a number of small parts placed together, and even during the research phase I search for the boundaries and contrasts of the various elements that make up my work. I study and am interested in each fragment of the work, seeking to understand its part and role within the creative whole, and searching for conceptual precision without material or conceptual excess.

As the past moves away from the present, it dissolves into a vague sense of memory, but also, surprisingly, the memory of the experience becomes more solid and clear. I liken my work to a memory game in which the cards are continuously shuffled. My work with materials and images is a kind of ongoing research in which I formulate my language to talk about the different parts of my life, and especially about the immigration from the Soviet Union to Israel. My parallel is of a dynamic sense of the present that forms around the emotional parts of the past embodied in the photographs and prints taken from the family album. This allows for study and familiarization with the subconscious and a renewed exploration of the understandings that have seemingly been achieved.

I invite viewers of my works to look outside and be enchanted by the objects that alternately gleam or hide, thereby also seeing their reflection, discovering the images hidden within, and thus connecting to their inner experience that connects past and present and the subconscious experience with the presence in the here-and-now.