Keren Farago

 

 

My main focus is drawing on various ready-made media such as paper, desk or dresser drawers, windows and doors etc. 

I collect books and materials that I find near my home and studio. I select the texts that interest and touch me, then assemble and bind them together as a starting backdrop for my drawings.

 

In recent years I have been particularly interested in the piles of books often left near my home and studio. These torn, yellowed and disintegrating books, often bearing moving dedications, were typically brought to Israel by our brave immigrants or printed here with great pride. They represent the story of this nation.

I draw mainly images of animals or plants. My decision of what to paint is based on the conceptual and emotional connection which I relate to the text. 

 

I frequently encounter abandoned piles of wooden drawers filled with books and booklets. Some of these old books are from the last century, printed on different papers using various printing techniques. These are Hebrew language books on different subjects, among them diasporic poetry, history, agronomy, biology, geography and sometimes prose.                                                  

Some of the pages I use tell the story of the Jewish people as a whole or individually. I use secular or non-Rabbinic literature only, never religious texts. Since the books I use are secular, the  religious rules relating to the archiving and shelving of religious texts do not apply. The books and pages are beautiful and captivating in content, texture and type. The pages themselves lead me and help determine what I will draw while maintaining their own intrinsic features.

 

The text, reflecting the culture of the time, becomes the background for the drawing and thus the original content comes to life and speaks with the drawing above it. A new layer of meaning is formed.

 

Out of respect for and appreciation of the words on long forgotten pages, I aspire to return the sanctity of the bookcase, in both everyday and the Jewish sense, to the heart of the home, now in the form of a work of art.