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Artist Statement:
"There is passion behind every
form of art", said Franz Kafka
to his friend Gustav Janouch.
Art - painting, music, and
literature - has been my
vocation since I have come to
know myself.
My painting, which today is my
foremost occupation, is
apparently and inevitably
inseminated by the two other
arts...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
Selected One-man shows:
1983 - Mapu Gallery - Tel
Aviv.
1984 - Ein-Karem Inn -
Jerusalem.
1986, 88 - Hasimta, Old Jaffa.
1987 - Alexander Gallery - Los
Angeles.
1989 - Amalia Arbel Gall -
Rishon Lzion.
1990 - Hamishkan Leomanut -
Holon.
1992 - Amalia Arbel Gall. -
Tel Aviv.
1993 - Teachers Assn. House -
Tel Aviv.
1997 - Tirosh Gall. - Old ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Born in Poland, Jacob Porat came to Israel at the age of 14. Studied music and violin playing at "Shulamit" conservatory. Holds first degree in Hebrew Literature and Bible Studies and second degree in Comparative Literature, both from Tel-Aviv University. Studied Art, Painting and art printing in Avni institute in Tel Aviv. For many years taught literature and bible to high school students. Porat is involved in painting, literature and music, which either apart or taken together, inevitably fertilize one another. Jacob Porat is member of Israel`s Painters and Sculptors Association and has a studio in Jaffa.
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Prof. Nurit Govrin [Tel Aviv University, department of Hebrew Literarature]
Jacob Porat *
.
Jacob Porat is distinguished by his search for different, various forms of expression. The exhibitions he has held throughout the years expose the constant and changing elements of his works in all possible aspects: techniques, compositions, and themes. Although evident in his work, his literary education does not make his paintings an illustration of literary writings. Rather, it serves as the driving force of the painting, an enabler of deeper expression and intricacy of the visual statement. Porat`s paintings have a life of their own, and these lives have been an integral part of his works since he has begun painting to date. His works in, strike a correct balance between the "painting instinct", which is based on intuition and talent and the intellect that is aware of itself and of the literary interpretation of themes.
Porat`s continuous pursuit is associated with his unsteady, difficult and diverse childhood, his search for Jewish and Israeli identity, his assimilation of past events and family history, as well as of Israeli present and society and his place in them. His standing within several artistic branches - painting, literature, music, and photography - allows him to assemble the special of each, creating a unity of contradictions.
The Kafkaesque figure in Jacob Porat`s series of Kafka paintings stands opposite the closed gate, waiting for it to open. Made of ornate iron or arched stone at the entry to a house or wall, the gate is concrete, realistic, and traceable to specific buildings in Prague. The Kafkaesque figure is part of the gate, swallowed into it, protruding from it or entangled in its twists. However, it is also the metaphorical gate found inside any person as well as in one`s relations with other people and the world. This is a gate, which at the same time blocks the road and a personal gate designated only for the person standing opposite it.
The paintings are a splendid aesthetic expression of a world of nightmares, of frightful dreams becoming concrete, of the encounter between madness and nightmare and the logical, sane, and clear. They manifest art`s exclusive ability to unify conflicts and contradictions, to express lunacy by aesthetic means, and to concurrently depict contradictory situations: terror and beauty, colorful loneliness, styled nightmare, terrestrial hovering, and life growing out of death.
This exhibition is yet another brick in the glorious buildings of paintings inspired by literature and juxtaposing these two realms of art. It is an interpretive, principle confrontation between the worlds of literature and painting, and between the worlds of Kafka and Jacob Porat. However, more than anything else, it is a confrontation with the world of the readers-viewers - their way of deciphering Kafka's works on the background of Prague and their comprehension of Kafka paintings by Jacob Porat.
* From Prof. Nurit Govrin`s address at the opening of "Conversations with Kafka" painting exhibition, Nora Gallery, Jerusalem, 12.5.2001.
Dorit Kedar, PhD
Jacob Porat – Suns, Gods and Animals
Oil and Acrylic on Paper, Tirosh Gallery, Old Jaffa
Jacob Porat is a multi-disciplinary person that amalgamates a painter, literary scholar, teacher and musician. This multiplicity is evident in his studio. His interests span over a broad sphere and the approach his takes towards his work is often associated with art history, politics and literature.
For this exhibition, I have selected paintings that are free of any immediate context. The artist connects with archetypes that are common in ancient civilizations, in the tribal existence and in the human soul, which is capable of skipping over the cultural barrier in order to land on the other side of the instincts and rowdiness inside us, where shade and light cannot be distinguished apart.
Suns: The big, hot and energetic illumination is depicted in the simplest form – an elliptic circle or a round one with infantile lines for the rays. The form may be childish, but the process is one of a very mature person. The suns fill the space of the relatively tiny paper, starring exclusively in the colorfulness that converses with the background – an identical motif endowed with a new meaning. The paint is thick, dense, layered, sealing, reflecting, playing inside-outside in the proximity between sun and background or in polarity infected with affinity.
Animals: Similarly to the suns, the animal series seems like a modern hieroglyph that translates long-gone sensations. Porat has chosen large, vegetarian, harmless animals such as a camel, a giraffe, or a deer. However, the graffiti, children-like riders are clutching weapons such as clubs and shield.
Similarly to the first series, the works toggle between imaginary childishness and high abstraction ability, between simple forms and sophisticated handling of the background. The style plays on unconscious contents of suns and animals that seem like an archetype of a big, generous mother combination with the terrible mother who swallows and kills. A longer observation borders on discomfort that results from the same combination of happiness and sadness, vitality and finiteness.
Gods and angels: This is a small, magnificent series of a winged, armless angel, a fertility goddess, also limbless – despite the emphasis on her sexual organs, and a figure that is either hanging in the air or attempting to be carrying a large geometric shape – one cannot tell.
Portraits: These too reflect the stitching together of shade and light. The Artist’s daughter is painted in monastic, brown and gray pigments concurrently with warm juicy and refreshing colorfulness. A fantastic portrait of life-death mask lies next to the artist’s portrait. Porat has painted himself as a Byzantine icon, with black, inspecting eyes from a side view. The dominant colors are red, pink and bottle green that contribute to the vigilance and the external restraint that conceal the emotional storm that takes place invisibly inside each one of us.
Rina Ginossar: An Old Sight Too Has a Moment of Birth
(J. Porat's Works in Oil and Mixed Media on Paper and Cardboard, 2000-2005)
"An old sight too has a moment of birth", the opening line of Alterman's poem "Moon", appears in one of J. Porat's works from 2003, written in his own hand as one of the elements of the painting, similar to other texts which Porat has embedded in much of his work since the year 2000. Apparently during these years Porat has been engaging in dialogues, on the one hand with culture heroes and artists (especially writers and poets such as Alterman, Yehuda Amichai, Franz Kafka and Fernando Pessoa), while on the other hand, perhaps most importantly, with paintings of his own from earlier years.
The written word, given due respect, is placed in an exciting concert of shapes and color. This combination and communication of color, drawing and the written word comprise an integration worthy of attention. It is a concert in which color seems to be frame and background but is truly the soloist that focuses the eye of the viewer. J. Porat is a poet of color.
His own works with which Porat engages in dialogue in some of his paintings, are mostly miniature "sights" created many years earlier (in the 1980's), were never exhibited, and here they have a new "birth", thereby realizing Alterman's words quoted above, that "an old sight too has a moment of birth".
The structure of most of the works is one of windows, a single window or many windows, playing in beautiful yellow and other tones, while in and between them appears a carnival of figures in color and drawing (sometimes precisely figurative on the border of the realistic and sometimes barely hinted at). Some of the figures are realistic while others are totally phantasmal: people, animals, fauns, monsters, devils, birds, masks and other magical creatures. Here and there among them is a dominant figure which attracts full attention, such as the face of a young woman, black-haired and bare-breasted, or the head of a faun.
The "windows" fulfill the function of organizing, connecting, confronting and unifying at one and the same time. They offer the viewer a frame which permits focusing on the entirety and the ephemeral "Kafkaesque" which arouses wonder, stimulation and curiosity. They are Lego bricks which constantly build new castles.
All these, as well as the contents of the texts and their contexts, create effects of nonsense, humor and wit, which lead to a productive confrontation with the titles of some of the works, such as "The Human Condition 2003". The works in general have the quality of spirals: on the face of it, a style which repeats itself, but in practice, at familiar crossroads, it rises to a higher level. And then again there is a new variation, surprising and "tongue-in-cheek", according to a familiar dictionary to which new building blocks and combinations are constantly added, a new window opens, a different and new solution appears.
With the help of these basic steps the rhythm constantly changes: runs, walks, skips, and creates a wonderful dialogue, leaving the viewer eager for more.
רינה גינוסר: גם למראה נושן יש רגע של הולדת
(יעקב פורת – עבודות שמן וטכניקב מעורבת על נייר ועל קרטון 2000-2005)
המובאה שלעיל משירו של אלתרמן, "גם למראה נושן יש רגע של הולדת" (הטור הפותח את השיר "ירח"), מופיעה באחת מעבודותיו של יעקב פורת משנת 2003, בכתב ידו של פורת, כאחד האלמנטים של העבודה, כשם שטקסטים דומים ואחרים מצויים במרבית הסדרות של יעקב פורת, שנוצרו החל משנת 2000 ואילך. נראה שפורת מנהל מצד אחד בעבודות של שנים אלו רב שיח מגוון עם גיבורי תרבות ויוצרים אחרים (בעיקר סופרים ומשוררים כגון אלתרמן, יהודה עמיחי, פרנץ קפקא, פרננדו פסואה ואחרים) ומצד שני - ואולי בעיקר - עם יצירות פלסטיות שלו עצמו, שנוצרו בדרך כלל שנים רבות לפני כן.
המילה הכתובה, שמוענק לה כבוד ראוי, משתלבת בקונצרט צבעוני ומרהיב של צורות וכתמים. ואכן תקשורת ותשלובת זו שבין הצבע, הרישום והמילה בעבודותיו של פורת מהווה אינטגרציה, שראוי לתת עליה את הדעת. זהו קונצרט, שבו הצבע הוא לעתים כביכול רק מסגרת ורקע ולעתים קרובות הסולן, שממקד את עין הצופה. כי יעקב פורת הוא משורר של צבע.
היצירות של עצמו, שעימן מנהל פורת שיח בחלק מן העבודות, הן על פי רוב "מראות" מניאטוריים, שנוצרו שנים קודם לכן, שלא הוצגו מעולם בפומבי, והן זוכות כאן ל"הולדת" חדשה – ומגשימות את השורה האלתרמנית שמצוטטת לעיל, כי "גם למראה נושן יש רגע של הולדת".
המבנה של מרבית העבודות הוא מבנה של מעין חלונות – חלון בודד או חלונות הרבה, המשתעשעים פעמים בגוון צהוב יפהפה ובגוונים אחרים – בתוכם וביניהם מצוי קרנבל של דמויות בצבע וברישום (פעמים רישום מדוייק על גבול הריאליסטי ופעמים מרומז וקליל). הדמויות - חלקן כמו ריאליסטיות וחלקן דמיוניות לחלוטין: אנשים, בעלי חיים, פאונים, מפלצות, שדים, בעלי כנף, מסיכות, צורות גיאומטריות ויצורים קסומים אחרים. פעמים פה ושם בין כל אלה מצויה דמות דומיננטית, שמסיבה אליה את מלוא תשומת הלב, כגון פניה של נערה שחורת שיער ומעורטלת חזה או ראשו של פאון.
ה"חלונות" ממלאים פונקציה מארגנת, מקשרת, מעמתת ומאחדת כאחד. הם מעניקים לצופה מסגרת, שמאפשרת לו להתמקד במכלול ו"בקפקאיות" החומקת, המעוררת תהיה, גירוי וסקרנות. והם אבני הלגו, שבונות כל הזמן ארמונות חדשים.
כל אלה - וכן תוכנם של חלק מן הטקסטים וגם ההקשר שהם מובאים בו - יוצרים פעמים אפקט של נונסנס, של הומור ושל שנינות, שגורמים לעימות מפרה עם כותרתן של חלק מן העבודות, כגון "מצבו של האדם 2003".
היצירות בכללן נושאות אופי של ספירלה. על פניו - סגנון החוזר על עצמו, אך למעשה בהגיעו לצומת מוכרת הוא עולה קומה. ואז שוב בוריאציה חדשה, מפתיעה ובקריצת עיין – בעזרת מילון מוכר שאליו מתווספות כל הזמן אבני בנין וצירופים חדשים - חלון נוסף נפתח; פתרון אחר וחדש עולה. בעזרת אותם צעדים בסיסיים המקצב משתנה כל הזמן, רץ, הולך ומדלג ויוצר רב-שיח נפלא, המשאיר טעם של עוד.
J. Porat, el expresionismo y el juego de personalidades
Por Joan Lluis Montané
De la Asociación Internacional de Críticos de Arte
Investigador de la consciencia, de la dualidad y de las polipersonalidades.
Analista del mundo formado por otros mundos y consciencias, J. Porat posee una obra expresionista, que profundiza en la materia, en la simbiosis del paradigma y la locura.
Capta aquellos mundos que están en fase embrionaria en nuestra consciencia.
Se trata de reflejar diferentes personalidades que tienen que ver con la cordura y la locura.
Trabajo excelente del pigmento, sin descuidar el dibujo.
Rostros dibujados, autorretratos en donde deja volar la imaginación, entroncando realidad y fantasía.
Los colores son directos, contrastados, establecidos dentro de parámetros en evidente calma. Pero, en ocasiones, todo es circunstancial. No hay nada definitivo.
En el fondo expresa, en su obra pictórica, personajes que viven momentos; refleja la fugacidad del segundo que nos acaricia para alentarnos o no.
Se interesa por personajes sumidos en la bacanal de la vorágine de la vida. Todos son evidentes pero, a la vez, no existen.
J. Porat es consciente de que existen distintos estados de la consciencia. El color es el mentor de la determinación de la consciencia humana, tanto en los actos más singulares como en los más físicas y provocativos.
Hay un drama contenido que se expresa en la composición, de forma implícita.
Publicado por: Artesur Fecha: Mayo 6, 2003 http://www.artesur.com/ispana/archivos/000082.php
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