Self Portrait as a Soldier

Ofer Lellouche and Ariel Yannay - A conversation

O.L: When I taught painting I would remonstrate against the fact that students paint an object without taking the environing into account. But in your works I find that there is something true and organic in this disregard for space.

A.Y:  I do not think that I isolate objects without taking space into consideration; I think that I do create some sort of space there , Perhaps that is what evokes a sense of integration. it's a different kind of space, meaning, as far as I'm concerend, that there is consideration for the environment, but not in the sense of reality in the stones or the articles of clothing naturally exist. 

I use objects that already bear their meaning and I seek to access an environment that is their fountainhead, to reach the primordial.

I guide them to the edge, to a place where the meaning they once conveyed becomes ambiguous - At this boundary, a new environment emerges—a primeval world where echoes of their former surroundings resonate.

O.L: Mallarme, a celebrated French poet, had a great influance on twentieth century poetry. He was a poet of nouns, objects. Verbs were virtually non-existent in his poetry. There is one poem of his in which the only verb is "to negate". Under Mallarme's tutelage, twentieth century poetry to a great extent is poetry of nouns. In visual art, painters who illustrate action are few and far between, the majority preferring stationary settings.

A.Y: The theme of nouns and negation occupies my mind a great deal. Seemingly, in my photographs, there are objects and nouns, and there is no action in them. But actually, the connection between the objects, I believe, creates an image, in a negative way, There is an attempt to tell a story consisting of nouns, resulting in the incapacity to make a story of this kind concrete. Ultimately, only fragments echoing and intimating this presence remain.

O.L: In my opinion, the ultimate noun is the grave, which is, at once, a signifier and something that bonds with the object itself. I think about this when I see your stones and the soldier. 

A.Y: It is interesting that my effort te settle the commotion invokes an association of the grave. Death is certainly something that is present in the photographs, in their esthetics, and in my work. Art and life on the one hand and helplessness on the other are two extremes I navigate between. Here, too, one my return to that same primordial setting which I have mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, a place I am endeavoring to reach, I am trying to express the moment midway between the starting point - a beginning subsequent to loss - and the acceptance or rejection of something else. Tension mounts at this time. It hosts tranquility but also uncertainty, which is manifested in the enigmatic quality of the photographs. The isolated parts of the soldier and their connection with stones and knots, arouse the desire to assemble and construct a coherent story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. And even if sometimes the end may appear to be unmistakable, this is also, in fact, a start.