Grand Gestures, Yael Grinwald at Artspace Tel-Aviv, Curator: Yair Barak,
Yael Grinwald’s solo exhibition Grand Gestures unfolds across two separate galleries that initially appear to operate as parallel axes. Yet it soon becomes evident that an intimate dialogue binds them together. The physical distance between the spaces becomes a metaphorical interval—between body and spirit, between the fleeting moment and its temporal extension, between the tangible and the metaphorical. Within each space a distinct gesture evolves: one intimate, contemplative, almost domestic; the other dramatic, corporeal, and deeply affecting. Together, they articulate a painterly and emotional arc that examines how a personal experience of vulnerability can be transformed into a visual language of healing.
In the entrance gallery, Grinwald presents a series of paintings (Grand Gestures, Small Gestures) that at first glance resemble a repetitive choreography of still life—a bouquet reiterated again and again, almost obsessively. Yet behind this formal recurrence lies a biographical narrative: Grinwald paints the bouquet she received following a major surgical procedure, tracing its blooming and, more crucially, its slow decline over the course of more than a year. Each painting documents a different stage in the bouquet’s life cycle and, by extension, in her own continuum of recovery. The flowers—an age-old, even overused symbol of passing beauty, gift-giving, and farewell—become instruments for measuring time, a kind of emotional chronometer registering the rhythm of change: of the body, the psyche, and memory itself. Here, time is not linear but cyclical—an ebbing and returning, fading and renewal. The series echoes the European tradition of floral painting while aligning with the branch that foregrounds decay, impermanence, and the memory of mortality.
In the main gallery (Grand Gestures, Good Hands), the painterly language expands into larger, more charged, and more intricate territories. A monumental series oscillates between figuration and abstraction and derives from two principal motifs: the operating room and the human brain. These function as foundations for a pictorial investigation—a classical study in theme and variation. The operated body, exposed organs, surgical instruments, and repairing hands all dissolve into color planes and gestural marks, swirling into compositions that balance scientific precision with visceral expressiveness. Alongside them, the brain—seat of thought, consciousness, and affect—emerges as an abstract field of lines, layers, and chromatic networks. It becomes a terrain of consciousness caught between pain and recovery.
Together, the two bodies of work trace Grinwald’s personal journey—from fear and anxiety to reflection, from the exposed body to painting as a site of restoration, from the real to the symbolic. Through the patient, repetitive, and exacting labor of painting, she reclaims authorship over her body and her own story. Here, the “gesture” is redefined—not as a public or theatrical act, but as a daily practice of attentiveness, presence, and self-compassion.
Grand Gestures delineates the delicate thresholds between fragility and strength, between suffering and beauty. It invites the viewer to enter the body—not as a distant observer but as a companion in an ongoing process of healing, where painting becomes breath, memory, and gesture itself.
Exhibition closes: 13 December 2025
Visiting Hours
Tue–Thu: 11:00–18:00
Fri–Sat: 10:00–14:00
Artspace Tel-Aviv 6 Shvil Hameretz, Tel Aviv–Jaffa , 03-6725124
צילום לנה גומון
