ORNA MILLO
Text from the catalog "HESTER PANIM", 2002
"The Israel Museum"

REFLECTIONS ON A BARRIER/GATE

The performance is an event, a process, during which I draw by effacing and by removing material. During the event I efface and expose drawings and in the process, I write verses from the books of Job and Psalms. The work is about seeing and about what obstructs seeing, barriers to seeing. Seeing aspires to overcome its obstruction just as consciousness desires to break through the limits of the mind. The very sensing of the barrier proves the existence of what is beyond it. Martin Buber's Or Ha'Ganuz (Tales of the Hasidim )

HIDING

Rabbi Rafael of Bershad, the favorite disciple of Rabbi Pinhas, told: "On the first day of Hanukkah, I complained to my teacher that in adversity it is very difficult to retain perfect faith in the belief that God provides for every human being. It actually seems as if God were hiding his face form such an unhappy being. What shall he do to strengthen his faith?" "The rabbi replied: 'It ceases to be a hiding, if you know it is hiding."

COVERING - RECOVERING - DISCOVERING

The glass sheets undergo a process on a "scale" from opaque to open. The first glass is the most opaque, even when partially transparent. It remains partly opaque due to the net which is inside it. The second glass does not become completely transparent either during the drawing/ effacing of the clay, since part of the drawing remains trapped, between the two glasses. The third glass is open in the middle and during the process of effacing and cleaning it becomes completely transparent. One can see through the glass and is brought to understand the link between the transparency of the air and the transparency of the glass.

In the work of drawing and effacing, writing and drawing are constantly interchanged so it is not easy to say exactly when writing begins and drawing ends.

The verses written in the process of effacing are:

- Genesis, chapter 36, verse 14

- Job, chapter 12, verse 22

- Job, chapter 26, verse 7

- Psalms, chapter 19 verses 3 and 4.

The verses from the book of Psalms are sung in a musical collage that accompanies the performance. The verses are sometimes written from right to left and sometimes from left to right in mirror writing, which makes it harder to decode them. The words appear somewhat divorced from their meaning, become mere shapes, and at the same time require decoding. During the event the writing is in two directions and the English words "MAY I SEE?" appear.

The work process in this event consists of the removal of the material that covers the sheets of glass and of the gradual recovery of their transparency. In the normal process of painting, new layers of material are continuously added. Here, layers are removed until the surface of the painting is recovered.

The work suggests the idea that the painting itself is an obstruction to seeing, a barrier that should be removed. In the process of this work the "painting barrier" is revealed along with the painting itself until they are both entirely effaced. Space can now pass through and be experienced in the barrier.

For the glass itself is still a barrier, an obstruction, a physical object in spite of its transparency. For this reason the last glass is open in the middle thus creating an unrestricted path into the space.