Artist's Statement

The fundamental dialogue taking place in Orit Hofshi's works is a dialogue between the artist and the material, wooden boards with natural patterns and grains, in which she carves and engraves, at times into the existing grain and at times alongside it. The work, genuine and strenuous manual labor, unfolds and reveals multitude levels: physical, emotional and spiritual, creating vis vitae in the wood itself.

The works are monumental, both in their actual size and in their conceptualized imagery, derived from the extensive observation and close study of terrains and topographic structures, impelled by nature's evident force and magnitude.
Although the imagery stems from natural phenomena and topography, the depicted landscape is not in any way stereotypical or typical. Rather, there are apparent conceptual processes and personal interpretational filters affecting the displayed work. It is in this arena where Orit Hofshi brings forth another conceptual dialogue, juggling figments of imagination with the apparent concrete reality. What is the spectrum of reality? What is fantasque? And what indeed is the role of imagination in the molding of reality?

Biography

Orit Hofshi, born in 1959 in Israel, first studied at the Wizo College of Design in Israel, but earned her M.A. from Leeds University, Leeds, England. Upon graduation, Hofshi continued her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA. Currently, she works at "Mishkan Omanim," The Artist's Studio, in her hometown of Herzliya, Israel.

Since the mid 1990's, Hofshi has focused on works on paper and woodcutting as her primary medium, exploring the relationship between artist, topographical patterns, and perception of the environment and man. In 2006, Hofshi attained a scholarship from the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Ireland and was chosen to participate in the group exhibition, Disengagement, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel.