Orly Sever

In Sever's installations, the viewer's presence in space constitutes one of the  fundamental elements responsible for charging the work with meaning. The spaces  she creates are constructed on a scale incompatible with the human body; they also  involve intentional disruptions, such as elements that block the viewer's gaze and  restrict his movements. 

Despite their large size and absurd quality, these works are characterized by a  significant degree of restraint and calm stemming from a use of simple geometric  forms, a lack of ornamentation and a restricted palette. Most of these works belong  to one of two main groups: white works and black works, which may at times reveal  the wooden or metallic surface of one of the objects integrated into them. The walls  of the white works (such as Untitled, 2007, which was included in the Haifa Museum  of Art exhibition "Passing the Batonette: Four Decades of Feminism in Israeli Art")  are composed of white plaster or plywood; they function as architectural extensions  that have no purpose other than overtaking the space in which they are located. 

The black works - such as Black Hole, which is featured in the current exhibition - stand out in greater contrast to the white exhibition spaces. This dissonance is given  expression not only in terms of their color but also in terms of their surfaces, which  resemble an active material - a kind of teeming epidermis with a dark, vital quality.  The walls of the current installation have been covered with black plasteline. This  plastic material, which is associated with childhood and innocence, blocks the  corridor-like space it creates and transforms it into a threatening, nightmarish site.  The plasteline's organic texture, which preserves the memory of the hands that  kneaded and acted upon the material, alludes to the possibility of reading this space  as a natural form, such as a cave or a womb. The black, angular space, with its  sloping ceiling and neon lighting, may also trigger vague memories of the staircase  leading down into a bomb shelter. Yet in the absence of a descending set of stairs to  parallel the sloping ceiling, this space seems to increasingly suffocate the viewer; it is  transformed from a shelter and hiding place into a mysterious, ominous space. 

Orly Sever was born on Kibbutz Cabri (1976). She is a graduate of Hamidrasha  School of Art, Beit Berl College (1999-2003); she also holds an M.F.A. from the  Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Tel Aviv (2004-2006). Solo exhibitions include:  Black, featured as part of the "Biography / Autobiography" exhibition cluster at the  Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (2005); "Swamp" (joint project with Maya  Attoun), Artists House, Tel Aviv (2007). She has also participated in group  exhibitions, including: "More than This," Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2004);  "Passing the Batonette: Four Decades of Feminism in Israeli Art," Haifa Museum of  Art (2007); and "Blocked Space," Cabri Art Gallery, Kibbutz Cabri (2008). Sever has  received the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Prize (2002-2003, 2005-2006); the  Joshua Rabinovich Foundation Grant (2004); and the Prize for the Encouragement of  Creativity, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Tel Aviv (2005, 2006). She lives and  works in Tel Aviv.