In Search of the Lost Homeland: Naomi Safran-Hon
In Imaginary Homelands (1991), a collection of Essays and Criticism, Salmon Rashdie writes that – “It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity.”
Naomi Safran-Hon is an Israeli artist who now lives and works in Brooklyn. In 2004, she won a scholarship to study at Brandeis University. Six years later, she earned her M.F.A. at Yale University. This is her studio in Bushwick.
Naomi Safran-Hon, Wadi Salib: Two archways into the sun, 2015, Acrylic, lace, pigment, archival ink jet print and cement on canvas, 88 x 72 in. Photo Credit: Curtsy of Slag Gallery.
In 2011, a year after she graduated from Yale, the owner of the Slag Gallery, Irina Protopopescu, gave the artists her first solo exhibition, “Absent Present.”All the main themes (the displaced homeowners) and techniques (lace and cement) that are seen in Safran-Hon’s work today are already present in this earlier body of work. Her most recent solo show “All my lovers” opened Slag gallery’s new location in Chelsea. The show opened this April and it will close on June 14th. This is the artist’s third solo show at Slag Galley. Safran-Hon also had solo shows at Marfa Contemporary in Marfa, TX, Chase Family Gallery in West Hartford, CT, at Brandt Gallery in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and in Pardes Gallery, Haifa, Israel.
One of the artist’s most representative paintings, Living Arrangement (2017), shows a vacant house with articles of clothing, pillows, and other personal items in a devastated heap. Many of these objects sprout cement as if the entire room is slowly being ravaged by time and elements. The defused light is steaming from above the arched doorway suggesting an almost religious state of grace that the site of the abandonment seeks but fails to achieve. Whoever lived here is gone, and their possessions tell a story of loss and flight. The juxtaposition of cement and lace creates the feeling of a new reality and false memories sprouting from the rabble.
In the interview with the NY Times Safran-Hon said, “My paintings are about the relationship we have with home and place and kind of bigger picture too. They’re about my relationship to where I grew up [in Haifa] and that specific history, but I’m interested in saying something much more.”
“My work is meant to be seen in person. It’s meant to hold space with you, to have a relationship with the viewer.” The physical presence of Safran-Hon’s work demands direct interaction with its audience. Naomi developed a unique technique in her artistic practice. She begins her compositions with ink-jet-print renderings of the photographs of the interiors of abandoned residencies. Then she lathers on wet cement at selected points in the image so that when dry its textured surface juts out at the viewer, making the walls become palpably stony. The more cement she adds the more the image begins to come apart, the artist typically pushes until the image is almost completely replaced by the physicality of the cement.
There’s a sense of the transformational magic taking place in Safran-Hon’s work. Artist is interested in myths and storytelling. In her work, she brings to life her own version of history. Naomi takes photographs of the neighborhood, Wadi Salib, in Haifa, where she grew up, and brings them back to her studio in Brooklyn. She destroys the photograph in the process of making her paintings. The artist questions the truth of the representation, she uses shards of evidence to construct her own version of reality.
Our civilization is consumed with myth-building, and in our time everybody wants to be able to tell their side of the story which often means their own version of the truth. Safran-Hon explores how mythology and history get created and intertwined until one is indistinguishable from the other. Her paintings try to question the viewer, is what do you see real? Is the photograph closer to the truth than a painting or the other way around?
Safran’s work also deals with an idea of a home as a safe place. During a virtual gallery visit artist said that home is a complicated space and concept, – “My sibling works in the United Nations and he told me that there was a survey in the U.N: What is the most dangerous place for women? It’s the home. This was before the pandemic.” Safran-Hon explores “home” as a place of abuse and violence, a place of comfort and discomfort. It is a place one tries to escape but often can not.
Safran-Hon’s work sells for 22K (48x120 in) large works, 10K for smaller canvases (28x40in), and 3-5K for very small work (18x16 in).
According to Art Basel Report 2020, the median price for the contemporary art sold through the galleries in 2019 was $7,000, which puts Safran-Hon’s work in the slightly above average range.
Even though most collectors couldn’t have direct access to the gallery, three works from “All my Loves” show were sold, at the time of the writing, in the $12,000–$17,000 range. Despite the fact that her work is heavily augmented with cement, Safran -Hon said during the virtual tour, that her canvases are not exceedingly heavy and don’t require any special hanging accommodations.
Perhaps the strongest painting in her latest show is Mirror Ceiling: A Room with a Mattress and a Chair (2017–2020). Incidentally, it is also the most expensive work at $25K. Mirror Ceiling is a diptych that suggests the representation of two decimated rooms. A mattress and a chair stand abandoned, their presence appears to be almost human. Two strong light sources that come from opposite directions unite the rooms into an inverted arch. As in all Safran-Hon’s work, the surface is richly encrusted with lace and cement, suggesting the opposition of the permanent and transient nature of the materials. It appears as if a new life is about to sprout from these tragic ruins, rich in memories and history.
During a virtual visit and Q/A session in conjunction with “All my Lovers”, I asked the artist if she considers the main themes of her work timely and political or more universal, relating to the larger ideas of the home and the wall. Safran-Hon laughed and said Yes and Yes.
Safran’s work derives direct influence from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the images of the abandoned houses refer to the buildings left behind due to the unstable political situation, the cement is the direct invocation to the walls that had to build to keep the violence at bay. But artist’s work also encompasses the larger understanding of the home and what it might mean to her contemporaries.
From Salmon Rashdie’s “Imaginary Homelands” – “The shards of memory acquired greater status, greater resonance because they were remains; fragmentation made trivial things seem like symbols and the mundane acquired numinous qualities.”
Safran-Hon’s work has a universal appeal because few of us haven’t left something behind, few of us are not missing homes of our childhood, places that are gone with the wind, abandoned and destroyed by unforeseen circumstances or by time.
Naomi Safran-Hon, Memory in 4 Layers, 2016, Acrylic, lace, gouache, pencil, archival inkjet print and cement on canvas and fabric, 72 x 42 inches, Photo Credit: Curtsy of Slag Gallery.