Insights - Solo exhibition

Ironwork sculptures as a materialization of introspection.

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will." George Bernard Shaw

This quote describes Rami Ater's work process. The object is conceived as an internal visual image. At this initial stage, Ater makes rough sketches on paper and puts his thoughts into words. In the second stage, he materializes the internal, emotional image - translating his thought into a three-dimensional artwork.

The material with which Ater chooses to work is raw industrial iron that he processes using various techniques. Processing the iron

reconfigures the material, enabling its semantic transformation in terms of the object's relation to its environment - injecting it with

additional content and meanings. 

In addition to employing a modern approach to smithery - combining traditional techniques with modern tools, Ater uses unique and

innovative techniques, which he developed himself. These techniques allow him to specify the sculptures' texture and coloration through heat and alloying.

The work process is an inner journey of liberation and a shift from the internal image to a tangible sculptural object. Transitioning outwards from an introspective gaze, Ater's sculptural work focuses on its intrinsic aesthetic dimension - proportions and relation to the actual space it occupies.

The exhibition displays three figurative series of works with internal meaning. All three series share a common base material - iron

sheets - some flat and some curved. The texture of the material and its processing technique are intuitively decided upon, on the fly,

throughout the execution stage. Work is carried out simultaneously on different sculptures. This parallelism is evident in the development of the different series, which correspond with one another - emotionally, figuratively and with regard to the color and texture of the various elements.