La Belle Captive  2002

Pe'er: Hamidrasha Gallery, (State Art Teachers Training College) Tel Aviv

A sniped drawing (pigment-powder applied with a mason's plummet) on wall, measurements: 3x8 m

Wall work as part of a two-person exhibition with Yoav Efrati

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curator: Doron Rabina

Assistant: Erez Israel

Photographs: Irit Tamari, Orly Sever

The theological notion La belle Captive pertains to the legitimization of pagan imagery within the monotheist, Jewish as well as Christian, doctrine banning all forms of magic, witchcraft, and the use of icons. According to the homiletic interpretation of the Scriptures, 'if she is pretty, she may be taken captive.'

The wall piece La Belle Captive uses a small drawing by A., a 9-year old girl from Bethlehem, describing her daily horrors under the Occupation. It shows a nurse with a Red Cross on her headband. Her eyes are conspicuously big, and she stands behind a twisted thicket of barbed wire. The drawing was printed in the Israeli press during the second Intifada (Palestinian Upraising) in a poster of PHR (Physicians for Human Rights), in collaboration with UPMRC (Japan International Volunteers Center).

Sniped drawing allows only straight lines. The girl's drawing was projected on the wall and remade, twice, "straightened" by pulling a cord dipped in pigment powder against the wall. A set of Star of David shapes bent in a circle was sniped by the same technique atop these drawings. Numerous layers of colorful grid, in growing density, were sniped on top of these.