Moon Grove / Rothschild Fine Art

In his new exhibition, Meir Appelfeld will show a series of monotypes of the Moon Grove located near his house in Jerusalem. The small paradise fenced in by houses, overlooking southern Jerusalem, has occupied Appelfeld for the past fifteen years. The condensed works presented in the exhibition are a fresh new layer born of years of observation and assimilation of the view of the Moon Grove.
The grove, hiding within an urban area, arouses two contrasting feelings in the observer. The first is an intensified sense of its rarity, along with the desire to celebrate its unusual existence. Conversely the severe presence of the stone buildings surrounding the grove penetrates and attempts to demolish any imagined pastorality. Nature which inclines to the rounded line and perhaps softness of form frequently confronts the straight lines made by man.
Appelfeld's work expresses this tension as an inner artistic discourse, in which the sight and presence of nature is cast from the severe geometric structures. At the same time it arouses wonder at nature, the singularity of the experience of wandering through the grove, while setting the grove firmly in a specific time and place.