“All the World’s a Stage” Hadassah Berry

Exhibition of pictures, Cinemateque Jerusalem, February – June 2013

Hanging the Show

About the exhibitionThe familiar saying “ All the world's a stage”, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, proclaims that nothing is lasting; much as

the speaker of Ecclesiastes 1:5 exclaimed " generations come and generations go, and the earth abideth". Despite this philosophy, or because of it, the role of

films and plastic arts is to expose if but for a limited time both the broad and extensive moments of life and the private and intimate. I too present a scene on

stage, focusing on fading memories linking with the viewer.

The development from the stage seemed complementary to the painting of the oil pictures of the Creation shown in the exhibition, where I worked over

canvases several times. Beginning with ‘rakiah’, hovering or nothingness, I moved from darkness to light, from shifting platelets to water and land, revealing

cracks or boiling sediments beneath the surface. Despite the reworking I tend towards working spontaneously, so that the end is not clear until finally reaching

a balance - the Creation.

The motif of movement and split reappeared in the series of monoprints: Fissures. (Here too there was due to the use of the ‘ghost’, a technique frequently

used with monoprints i.e. the use of the remnant image left on the printing plate.) In a similar vein of creation are the etchings Shoots and Resist which were

etched on used plates exposing scratches from earlier use.

In contrast making lithographs is a direct process. Here I had the benefit of producing an image on the stone, thus gaining a feel for the basic matter.

Lithographs, from the Greek lithos -stone, were first invented in 1796, where a print is produced on the principle of the resist between grease and water.

The coloured lithographs were carried out at the Pierre Press Print studios Marcilhac sur Célé, France;  each colour being produced on a separate stone.

The idea of the stage came to me while watching the spectacular backdrop of the local forested mountains, where I was struck by the theatrical scene of a

single magenta tree staged opposite the cliffs. Nature’s drama.

The prints of the Tablet series were inspired by the awesome mountains of Provence, where I worked at the Arthur Langlet Atelier, Provence, France in

2011. It was in this imposing atmosphere that I decided to make the prints of life’s cycle, thus returning to film making, editing and reviewing which seems to be

part of our lives.

Hadassah Berry, Jerusalem 2013

Reels Lithograph on Stone 50/40 cm 2011 Decay Lithograph on Stone with Monoprint 50/40cm 2011-3

Evening song Monoprint (imprints with gauze and remnants) 50/65cm 2013

Slits in the light Oil on canvas, 90cm/1m 2012

Fissure Monoprint (single print) 60/40cm 2012

Part I Hovering 1/84cm Part II A Vision towards Civilisation 1/115cm Part III Tectonic Movements 1/95cm

Creation triptych Section 1 dividing the waters Oil on stretched canvas 95/85cm 2012

“All the World’s a Stage” Part IIHaving not yet left the subject of Creation from the first part of the show of “All the World’s a Stage”, in the next part of the

show I focus on circular beginnings; here evolving seems to take its own route, the moment of start is by no means clear. This

exhibition differs from the Part I, the energies involved with the sturm und drang expressed by the tectonic plate movements of the

triptych entitled Creation have been softened. Whereas a few works from Part I have been included as a bridge or link in the cycle:

rakiah, or the firmament, Creationt as well as the theatrical portrayals of nature in the lithographs on stone, we chose to combine

them with several softer views painted 2-3 years ago of the mauve haze breaking at dawn and dusk which seemed in keeping with

the subject of days sustaining, while the stark strips of light at the beginning of creation (Part I) are less evident. In contrast, the

canvas Creation Day 2 from 2010 (not featured in the catalogue) is more monotonal than the coloured works discussed above. It

depicts a legend or aggadah, describing the foreseeing of future civilization captured during the appearance of the primal light and

the division of the elements. Linked to this idea two new monoprints are displayed, depicting light piercing through the split of the

earth’s layers.

During this process I sometimes wanted to halt the revolving movement while it picked up various elements on the way. The

series of the monoprints with parts of cycles entitled evolving nights, evening tide etc. are composed of remnants from objects

imprinted through ink unevenly on to the paper. The two pieces on Chi Quong at dawn echo the energies of a new start.

The show opens with a quartet of small canvases giving a glimpse on to the renewal of each day afresh.

The lithographs on display were carried out in the print studios at Marcilhac sur Célé, and were inspired by the stunning local steep

vegetated hills and gorges of the French Pyrenees. Ecological Decalogue is part of an earlier series on sustaining, likewise

inspired by the thought provoking surroundings of Provence area during a residency at Atelier Langlet, Seguret.

Evolving Days Oil on Canvas 1.10/1m 2009

Towards Dusk Jerusalem Oil on canvas 85/1m 2012

All the World's a Stage (Mis en scène à Marcilhac) Lithograph on stone 40/50cm 2012

Bereishit Lithograph on Stone 50/40cm 2012

The Day's Opening Quartet oil on canvas 30/35cm each 2009 -2013

Joseph’s Sheaves Etching and Monoprint 65/58 cm 2012

Inking the Plate for Etching