DITI ALMOG paintings

November 6 - December 9, 2009
Opening reception for the artist: Friday, November 6, from 5-8PM

In every house by the sea there’s always a picture of the sea. Why is that?   Diti Almog

SPACESURPLUS is pleased to present new paintings by Diti Almog that show sea and sky horizons spanning multiple panels with architectural elements and her own elemental horizon paintings embedded within.

To project her view of the viewer’s view, Almog has in many senses stepped away from painting as a possible visual language and perhaps redefined it as something that has been there all along: painting appears to Almog to be just that, painting. Through a near-transparent lightness of technique, a radiance of color that is as deft as Delft and just as modern, simplicity of form and subtlety of scale and framing, Almog’s silent images demand both all and nothing of the viewer. “Why bother to look if you don’t see?”, says Almog. If you look hard enough you realize that Almog has succeeded not so much in producing some beautifully ambiguous genre-less paintings, but in taking your time, making you look, and, like a small child artfully manipulating a parent, she’s grabbed your attention and you can but gaze back with damp salty eyes.

Almog clearly has a deep respect for her subject, the viewer, the viewer’s perspective, and most importantly for the space that they all sometimes occupy. Through an evident ongoing deprecation of form, Almog sedulously nudges the viewer toward the core of her paintings, the nature of painting, and what floats beyond.

Diti Almog was born in Haifa, Israel in 1960. After gallery and museum exhibitions in Israel she moved to New York in 1991 where she was represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery and has been showing both nationally and internationally. In 2006 the Tel Aviv Museum staged an extensive survey show of her work. Almog lives and works in New York City.