Nasrin Abu Baker's new body of work was made especially for the intermediate space of the Beit Hagefen Gallery and consists of everyday objects and building materials. Plates, fraying velvet curtains and fabrics reassembled with tar and cement create a crowded and unexpected site of events. A combination of elements characterized as “feminine” and “masculine” is a recurring theme in the artist’s work. Images, symbols, objects and materials taken out of their context are made present through their contrasts. Through these actions, the artist seeks to challenge patriarchal power relations and cultural conventions. The choice of materials for the works is inspired by Abu Baker’s immediate environment: her parents’ home and her house painter father’s workplace. “My preoccupation with readily available materials comes from a love and passion for material, in tribute to my working-class parents, and from the desire to examine my ties to this class and to the mostly elitist art field,” says the artist. The title of the exhibition, FabricAtion, refers to the English word’s two different meanings: production and fiction. Abu Baker's works, ranging from the produced to the imagined, exist together in perpetual tension. The hybrid place created in the gallery space combines the domestic, the intimate, the vulgar and the theatrical.

Text by Yael Messer/ Photography: Elad Sarig