Maytal Rotenberg - Artist Investigator
Giclées
A giclée is actually a museum-quality print, and the prints I'm offering were printed using inkjet printing on quality archival paper - such prints are said to last 100 years or more(!)
When I decided to reissue the works as giclées, it was important to me that the quality of the work could be felt in both the material and spirit, and it is indeed noticeably present in a satisfying way.
The reissue is of a diverse collection of works from different periods in my practice as a multidisciplinary artist investigator.
The general thread connecting them is an investigation into matter, memory, and gesture.
Through close observation of brushstrokes, graphite textures and ballpoint pen/ marker qualities, the works trace correspondences between drawing and its meaning - exploration, documentation and imagination.
The prints are in an intimate A5 size, signed with my original signature, and packaged in cellophane with cardboard backing.
Contact me for more information
About The Works
*For full size images click "Drawings/ Paintings" in the menu
"Archeology of Brush Strokes" and "Genealogy of Brush Strokes" are acrylic drawings that actually explore the brushstroke itself.
2021. Under a small lamp illuminating brushstrokes that I had painted in diluted brown, I would trace over every detail of the stroke with a thin brush and darker brown. Like drawing the history of the stroke, capturing what could be caught in a line from the movement that had been (obviously much of the history goes unrecorded).
This is a search. Archeology. And indeed, with the help of the investigative line, the strokes became like fragments of archeological stones. The movement of water in the brush stroke is like its movement in stone. Nature is the same nature. What is this nature? What is the nature of art? Of painting? What turns something into art? What makes a stroke resemble stone? And what is so fascinating in that ancient mystery? What was then? What is now?
This is how I developed research that I continue to this day - research in the form of indexes - the nature of learning. What details are there to discover in a brushstroke and what forms?
Maybe if I understand how it happened and why, I can also understand what exactly happened and what the meaning of it is, because everything is in the same nature.
Archeology of Brush Strokes,
2021
Acrylic on paper
Archival giclée print
Genealogy of Brush Strokes
2021
Acrylic on paper
Archival giclée print
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White Brush Stroke
2021
Acrylic and a ball pen on carton
Archival giclée print
How tracing a white acrylic brushstroke with a ballpoint pen connects doodling to Japanese Zen and creates a landscape
2021. As part of my research into brush strokes I paint with acrylic a white brush stroke, and then when it dries, I go over the details with a ballpoint pen, tracing what happened in the moment of the brush stroke.
The movement from the Zen tradition of a single brush stroke in a specific moment is examined in detail and becomes a kind of landscape. The brush stroke guides my path, I follow with a pen that is typically used for doodling during phone calls or everyday writing of little importance (after all, if it were an "important" moment, it would be recorded in fountain pen). And perhaps because of this- because of the lack of sacredness in this pen compared to other art materials, because of its simplicity and frequent use, I discovered in it a kind of freedom and flow since childhood. While here the brush stroke outlines my path, there are pathways to the imaginative and improvisational that, as if through the constant use of this pen, emerge easily from the subconscious.
And here in "White Brush Stroke", the Zen moment (the focused and sacred) and the doodling (the intense, the secular) connect (God forbid!). The brush stroke remains a brush stroke and simultaneously becomes an imagined landscape in the cardboard space. With such simple means, the investigation becomes something aesthetic, of the senses. Something the eye wants to follow and beyond, into imagination. Perhaps this is the aesthetic of the moment and its intensity.
How to be both in the moment and in imagination.
Island
2021
Pencils on paper
Archival giclée print
A geological discovery of an island using a hard pencil that follows the details of a soft pencil stain
2021. I make a stain with a soft pencil, then go over the graininess with a harder pencil that emphasizes it. A topography forms- an island of intense movement in the quiet space of the paper. An exploring movement that, like the investigation of brush strokes I wrote about in relation to previous works, is an attempt to capture what was, how it came to be.
An island is actually a stain in the sea, and the wind blowing over it, the water seeping through it, the drying sun- these are nature's pencils. They create and sculpt this floating stain, floating in the sea- the space of the paper. The space of the paper as a world where things are created in matter and spirit, explored and responding to the external world beyond our understanding.
For me, the island is like the tip of Freud's iceberg- the conscious mind visible above the water.
What lies beneath? What caused the island to form?
In any case, there, somewhere- a desolate, distant island, not yet conquered is floating- somewhere in the conscious or subconscious.
Untitled
2021
Pencil and oil pastel on paper
Archival giclée print
What happens when bright yellow of oil pastel meets graphite?
In this work, I explored what happens when graphite meets yellow oil pastel. It is untitled maybe because it doesn't involve thinking in words but more in material. It was made in 2021, the same year in which I explored brush strokes and movements of the painting/ drawing act.
First, I was painting with the yellow oil pastel and then I followed with the pencil the direction of my painting movement with the pastel. Working with the pencil felt like engraving in soft wood, perhaps that's why it took on a wood-like pattern. I was interested in the contrast and connection between the shining, golden yet oily yellow and the grayish, "dirty" but silvery graphite.
The choice of a mirror-like composition now connects for me to the two hemispheres of the brain, and indeed in drawing there is always something that works differently on the right and on the left and it's not simple to make an exact mirror of a shape. Symmetry wasn't the intention here, but it makes me think about how the symmetry we are built in, constantly tries to rebel against itself in small comments - a right pinky slightly curved compared to the left one, for example. And here these are the comments of the material. Comments of the material that are imprinted with the gaps between thinking hemispheres, marking hands, and observing eyes.
Meteorite
2021
Color pencils and pencil on paper
Archival giclée print
A meteorite lands on Earth - what's inside it? What does it know about our planet? About distant planets?
Although, literally, I sometimes do judge a book by its cover, I've always been interested in what's inside things - inside the wall in front of me, inside a tree trunk, inside the earth - how their cross-section would look, and when it comes to rocks and stones, you can discover a fantastic world there that seems to know, knows about the planet, planet Earth more than any of us. And I don't mean just in a spiritual, mystical sense - the stones come from the foundations of the planet and therefore they must be the planet, the source material and the spirit that accompanies it.
And here - a meteorite from the galaxy - what's inside it? What does it know?
This drawing that I recently reissued as a print was drawn in 2021 in pencil and colored pencils on A5 paper. The graphite and pigment colors of the colored pencils seem to return themselves to their source - the rocks from which they were made in the form of the image of a rock glowing with colors inside. A rock containing an internal fire that has not yet been extinguished. A psychedelic fire rich in burning color inside a metallic graphite rock. A fire that is difficult to capture except in the childlike form that colored pencils allow.
ABC
2009
Marker on paper
Archival giclée print
I made ABC in 2009 during my fine art studies. This work still seems right to me, perhaps more than ever - in days when the inventions of the "wise" human being are collapsing upon him, upon us, the work seems to ask: "You, human being, Homo sapiens - what are all your ships worth, your technology, your knowledge, your language - everything collapses in the face of the forces of nature" and in the context of the wars and injustices we have been witnessing lately, I'll add - everything collapses in the face of the injustice you do.
This is one of my only works that has some political reference (although everything is political in the end...)
And if we want a perhaps slightly more optimistic message: "You, human being, Homo sapiens, in the end everything collapses before the ocean that is greater than you. The ocean that, even if stormy, will always return to a balanced state and remind you what balance is- there, there's a horizon.
* The original work's size is A3
Landscape with Pen
2010
Ball pen on paper
Archival giclée print
Exploring the connections between digital landscapes, graphics and drawing, using a simple ballpoint pen
2010. I'm in the third year of my studies. I'm interested in imaginary landscapes and how they are represented in computer games- how nature is depicted there, what character and lines it has, what it represents by itself, what interpretation was given to it. After many drawings with ballpoint pen and growing comfortable with it, after learning perspective and my hand becoming skilled in drawing nature, I take on a challenge: drawing a landscape in ballpoint pen, size 70x100cm. I work intensively on the drawing for a month. Pen after pen after pen. I don't remember how many pens. Simple paper. The result turns out impressive yet accessible because of the simplicity of the materials. The blue of the pen is vibrant yet naturally faded. The landscape feels distant while creating the illusion of being present within it.
This was a time of studies and research exploring landscapes through graphics and drawing, and the movement between the two. Reissuing it as a print brings the drawing back to life, though in a smaller size, but the blue ink is vibrant and rich. It's moving. It takes me back 14 years! The imaginary landscape remains blue and distant, quite romantic when looking at it from here to 2011.
Parasite
2014
Ball pen on paper
Archival giclée print
The aesthetics of growth and disease, spreading and its interactions within the white space of the page
2014. Three years after finishing my studies, I continue to draw, make installations, and write simultaneously. I'm thinking about splitting myself into heteronyms - the drawing character named Anna Zugorovsky. In her persona, I draw this tree. "Parasite". Ballpoint pen on paper, 50x70cm. The focus is on growing nature, ecology, symbiosis, and spreading. The aesthetics of disease and growths. My/ her hand absorbs the forms while imagination guides. The paper serves as a space rather than just a medium, and the silence and emptiness in it are as important as what is drawn on it. Actually, when I arrived in Portugal and witnessed the wild nature (and moss:) I thought, "Anna would have loved this".
The reissued print brings new life to the drawing. The color richness in it, despite being only blue, moved me. It reproduced well perhaps because the ballpoint pen is a product of technology (unlike oil paints, for example, which are harder to reproduce), and perhaps in the ink printing, technology connects to itself and knows how to reproduce what was drawn with it.
A Dresser
2019
Ball pen on paper
Archival giclée print
The dresser I always wanted / how wood returns to itself after becoming paper
2019. I feel like my hand works like a scanner that physically knows how to transfer the wood pattern. As if the movement has been absorbed in it, and wood surfaces are often produced in my "drawing carpentry." During that same period, I also created this dresser. The dresser I always wanted. Made of solid wood and not cheap particleboard. Where you can see the wood patterns. Without sliding drawers that break over time. A dresser for all my art materials. For all my notebooks. A dresser that will serve me for years.
The size is also small in the original (14x20cm), perhaps like a distant childhood memory. But indeed, there is something in the drawing that goes with me, that will serve me for years.
You can put whatever you want in the dresser. And it's not seen. Maybe it's also my connection to my home, even while wandering. Maybe it's also the wood that the paper is made from. The wood that is enslaved and I'm not comfortable with it. I hope it will forgive me because I declare its declaration on paper. A closed dresser. Without words. Just beauty that might leave the world if it's exploited too much.