MICHAL ALMA - RESUME

 

Michal Alma Marcus – occupies a unique niche between artistic creation and research into plastic art  of the "Midrasha Leomanut", the Bet Berl School of the Arts.  She has lived in Ramat Hasharon

  Over the past decade she has been creating works under the main subject heading described by her as "Twilight time"  as a multi-disciplinary era and topic.

  Over the past decade she has been creating works under the main subject heading described by her as "Twilight time – as a multi-disciplinary era and topic."

  The visual works correspond with her literary works and present in-between worlds, between  the real world and a world beyond reality; between art and literature through hidden scenes; worlds in which chaos reigns and the genetic change of human beings and the universe already occurs within them; metaphysical worlds which connect with other suns and other universes.; nearby worlds, identified but also strange and unknown worlds.

  In the last decade Michal Alma has been working with digital art which is a cross between photography and painting. She came to digital art via her ideas about the paintings which she created. Over the past decade she has produced hundreds of original works that have been developed in dozens of series. Among the series under the main category heading "Twilight of the moon lands," are "the Kitchen of Life," " Mondrian doesn't live here any more," " Hidden landscapes," "Character and building," "Hidden Landscapes" "Human Trees," and many additional series that interplay in a profusion of contents with the current era  which is described by her -  as the twilight of the moon lands..

 

" So who does his deeds in the dark via  the last neck of the gesture of the birds? They pass via the kitchens of life to the emptied rooms." Michal Alma.

 

 Like in archeological excavations, like in the discovery of a new reality.

 Michal Alma's digital works investigate photography and painting in a wealth of approaches and by correspondence with and examination of the different genres of the plastic art through correspondence with the history of art throughout its eras. The works are divided into topics and subtopics under the heading "The twilight of the moon lands," and they represent photographed places in which the origins of the reality are investigated.

 

Ruined buildings, metaphorical and metaphysical landscapes are created, Earthly buildings  take on a different personality, landscapes assume a different dimension… Statements about the nature of the photograph give rise to statements about the meaning of the painting and the connection between them. The works  investigate the capturing of the living moment and the question of the changing element. From the moment that the moment freezes in time it also stops and then breaks up and splits and is treated manually and painted. From the camera lens to the painted way. From the way of the digital technological systems to the manual treatment which returns to line and stain. To the interplay of shadows and to other and foreign styles. It is necessary to add that, by increasing the resolution of photographs, we reach into more abstract places in which we find traces of smearing, of abstraction, impressionism, expressionism, cubism, and so on.

 The works  painted by Michal Alma belong to the moment when the  camera lens  undergoes a change due to intervention by the executing hand, and there are revealed - like in an archeological process of searching – ancient sources strange to the eye.

  Just as inside the ground there are discovered broken shards of pottery and other worlds, so too in the photograph of the reality frozen in time –   a different reality comes into being, with other scenes and unexpected realities. This is a kind of decoding of "behind the reality" by means of philosophical and ideological tools which contain visual images close to reality but also very foreign to it. New meanings are created which are revealed with each layer that has been discovered and exposed. The stratified truth of the reality that was frozen in time turns into a commentary on  the meaning of the reality of the little man and infinity, the infinity in which there is no reduction or diminishing. It has no rules and is exposed  in its complexity and stratification,

 

To where does all such a world belong?

 Concrete worlds representing buildings, parts of images or objects,  undergo change of place and time, color and form. All were photographed by Michal Alma and investigated until they reached  the exact notional intended point of encounter. The works  emphasize  reality and those parts lying behind it, the concrete as against another, unknown world where the control over reality is lost.

  The concrete reality describes contemplation of landscape pictures, the empty spaces of  ruined buildings, images and shadows, familiar "ready made" parts that have been discovered, and finally an examination of the photographed world as against the painted world. There is created a blend from within the familiar environment  to a foreign tongue There is revealed  a visual language  influenced by broken fragments of reality ( just as they break up all the time according to  the changes of time and life, the human body and its illnesses, the way of understanding life, reality and its changes in all strata, and the universe which also changes)

   From within the works there arise questions regarding reality and about the new places that have been created. The final picture embodies places that the camera eye would never succeed in capturing, and their importance  is expressed by the coming to life of the frozen and  dead moment, just as the Golem rises up against his creator.

  The moon lands is a metaphorical name that describes the time in which the moon shines on the countries of planet earth, but how do the surface of the moon lands look? What are the moon lands? What is the real place which is situated in the reality of the photo? Every work relates to a different aspect of a statement about  reality and by correspondence through the history of art.

  In no few religions there is the belief in reincarnation. Reincarnations occur all the time in human beings during their lifetime. In reality change also occurs. The change is external as well as internal. It penetrates  into the expanses of  nature   and of the human consciousness.

  Nature, too, changes all the time within time, on the same ground, under the same heavens. The internal, social, physical and emotional changes which human beings undergo turn into information assembled from pieces and scraps of visual memory.

  The places in the works have ceased being concrete. They speak in a language, of symbols, ideas and images about the transition between life and death, about the meaning of the seen and the unseen, about changing structures as about soul structures, about changing human beings, about identification and non-identification with reality, changing times and areas, complex places created from pieces of consciousness which unravel the concrete memory and emphasize places  located in between.

  The twilight is therefore era and time in a mixed place. The time when the sun sets and the moon rises. At dusk the time is mixed with consciousness. Time belongs to the teaching of Kabbalah. In the twilight time unusual things were created. It is a time when new dimensions are created for the consciousness. The illusion of the day and place, of time and the hour It is the way of reality to move about in other paths and regions. Undecoded parts are revealed, and at times are not decoded at all.

  The soul of man in the landscapes of illusion wonders about the times, about reality, about the moment captured by the camera, about the change that occurs from the moment the photography stopped and froze.

  From within the rooms of life come empty spaces to tell of forgotten places that were gathered in the last vestiges of light.

  The ruined buildings represent a recollection of other reincarnations of the human soul and the realistic consciousness of the infinite image and memory. The connection between the physical photo and the laborious work of the  free painting prompts the question- – is photography only an accurate means of reality, and how accurate is it  really in relation to reality?

  Is photography only a dead moment that has frozen in time and in the consciousness? The true nature outside assumes different aspects when it is photographed or when it is painted. But what happens  to the image when it remains in a  place not a place and turns into time that is not time?

  To reach down inside "another area" in order to discover the truth about the riddle of reality, about the riddle of the human consciousness.

Death of a sunset

From the book : Among Other Planets

This is a place I was looking for

Where there is an explanation about the soul

One prayer she would encounter

And it turned into four.

From the four ends she approaches

To perform resuscitation

On a small scrap of hope, good and vague

Which became an illusion.

Illusion of the day, the place and hour

Among the  sun's rays there bursts forth a gift

From the next Hell.

And instead of loves of the spirit

The World chose a place in which to sit and rest.

How will it be consoled only for the death of a sunset?

The sun, so they say there,

Has died,

But will return the next day.