Dídac Pintor Codina

 

Canvas of Faces.

Graphit, charcoal, ink, pigments, and oil on canvas.

195cm/160 cm

The weight of History’s time.
About the blacknight.

Questioned about the night issue and its common image as a synonym of darkness, and trying to relate it to the Jewish corpus of traditional and contemporary literature—which has been a constant heterodox intention—I have tried to work on this theme in previous personal visual works from different perspectives: internal and external.

My idea for the art production as the final result of the study program on traditional Jewish texts consists of creating a large-format painting and some constructed objects inspired by a Vessel form.

The painting has the format of a landscape, 195cm/160 cm, and I depict it as a human and human history landscape.

Considering the Halachic prohibition of representing the human being, the limits of language representation of horror in human history, and Walter Benjamin’s essay “On the Concept of History,” I am working mainly with three graphical figures that have high symbolic meaning: the tree, the scales, and human faces. These elements construct a landscape in which human matters are at its center, represented as an unveiled organic body map.

Face. P’neh/Paneem. Face to Face. פנים אל פנים

The face is the main subject of the painting and a significant word throughout the entire Tanakh, referring to the presence of God’s light appearing face to face with the human being. It also appears in Genesis during the creation of the world. Eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge of good and evil results in the expulsion from the Garden and the withdrawal of God’s Face. The shining of our face reflects the shining of God’s face in ours. What would Buber say about the encounter in dialogue of human faces? Can they bring light? I think the lack of dialogue brings the self-chosen presence of darkness in humans, resulting in a metaphorical night, solitude, and alienation, as Buber suggests.

The tree. The tree of life.

The scales. Justice.

 

Amphorae:

Aleph. Emet Lamad Pikha.

 

Iron, ink and rice paper. Aleatoric 3 dimensional.

Inspired by Itzhak Luria’s ideas on the cosmogony of creation.