| Summary: | 'Evocative Surfaces', a solo exhibition by Beverly Barkat at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani, features an extensive cycle of works produced at the artist's studio in Jerusalem over the past ten years. Housed in different stanzas of the palazzo's second floor, the works encompass large-format paintings and drawings along with site-specific installation work. Entering into a close dialogue with the premise itself and its rich history, the works relate to the unique architecture and period furnishings of the palazzo, touching as well on the important collection of art and archeology it houses. In their vibrancy, color and magnitude, Barkat's works echo and accompany the rich visual scheme of the decorations and wall paintings, which celebrate the Grimani family and the Venetian Republic at large. Barkat developed her unique painterly gesture out of a long and profound engagement with art history. Her continued observation of the tradition of western painting has accumulated in a body of knowledge that has found its way to her artistic practice. While rooting herself in the classical tradition, Barkat also takes inspiration from movements in Modern art, namely Cubism and Abstract Expressionism. If previous works of hers reflected genre categories in western painting--the landscape, still-life, portraiture and the nude-- in recent years she has been shifting her subject matter to a subliminal realm of imaginary landscapes, rendered in a language of abstraction -- Exhibition: Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice, Italy (13.05.-26.11.2017).
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