I believe it was Althusser who wrote that it was impossible to "paint" social relations -- that we might only be able to depict their effects. Alon Ohana's work is reminiscent of this argument -- there is a certain ephemeral quality to paintings that seem to hint at a previous life, a kind of afterimage unfolding in the wake of impossible clarity. The vision, however, is far from incoherent.
Living and working in Israel, Ohana rends his subjects from newspaper photos, displacing characters from both their physical and visual settings, ripping away at the fabric of their personal histories. A forlorn and disembodied head looks down beyond the borders of the painting, burdened by the yellow bulk of the canvas weighing above and around him. Two unkempt smears, or weeping tears, mar the length of the painting.
Others of Ohana's 'Untitled' series use similar techniques to evoke nightmarish effects, but this faded figure exposes a painful and haunting solitude.
Hong-An Tran received her PhD in Social Theory and Visual Studies from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. She is currently a researcher and a freelance writer in New York City.
To see more of Alon Ohana's work on Your Gallery and to find out more about the artist, click here
Untitled, 1996
Untitled, 1994
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