Ammi’el, 1999
Boaz Vaadia
Born in 1951, Gat-Rimon, Petach-Tivka, Israel.
Works in Brooklyn, NY
Ammi’el, 1999,
bronze, bluestone, boulder, 5/5 (ed.5 + 1A.P.),
73” x 52” x 52”
Ba’al, 1996,
bronze, bluestone, boulder, 5/5 (ed.5 + 1A.P.),
48” x 46” x 46”
Lent by the Boaz Vaadia Museum Collection
Boaz Vaadia slices and carves layers of bluestone to form his figures. Each layer is hand-hewn, chiseled, and chipped in the manner of ancient arrowheads. Vaadia then stacks these gradated bluestone pieces into a stratified human form that echoes the way in which sediment is naturally layered in rock. These two simply postured figures rest on boulders placed atop heavy bluestone slabs. The artist uses materials taken from his own urban landscape—slate and bluestone from roofing and sidewalks, and glacial boulders unearthed from city building sites. The artist believes that using these materials connects each sculpture directly to man’s interaction with the earth. He views the urban environment not as an artificial creation but as part of a natural habitat fashioned by man.
Stout and balanced, these works emanate a density inherent to the earth. Vaadia views his work as a portrayal of the energies present in nature, and his figures as expressions of this energy frozen in modern man. The artist states that, “By using the natural forces of rocks…my work is trying to awaken these ancient ‘earth senses’ that were slowly abandoned by man during his long evolution through civilization.” His work reflects the primeval and symbolic resonance of stone as “the bone structure of the earth.”
These solid and serenely silhouetted figures are anonymous and elemental, simply occupying their defined space. The boulders on which they rest add to a sense of contemplation and speak to the spiritual potential inherent in the stone. Each figure is both self-contained and part of an interwoven environment.
