Aithan Shapira

Aithan Shapira’s paintings and prints are the result of taking the natural world apart and putting it back together confronting all perspectives. His works are characterized by his attention to light as a solid often blocking other objects from view and an expansive palette of yellows ranging from desert to golden sun, honey, urine and bile that he makes symbolically from mixing oils and waxes with soil from Israel and olive branch ashes. Shapira’s subject matter tackles conflicting fields of view, whether simultaneously addressing two sides of a wall or matters of migration or of false hope. Just as the tone in which something is said can alter its meaning, Shapira assembles contradictions inverting depths of field, juxtaposing velvety inflections against grittier passages, and shifting fields of view to ask us to consider the malleability in which the same object can take on vastly different meanings. His simplified shapes and patterns serve to condense his perceptual attentiveness into poetic representations with tight compositions.