Yedidya Hershberg: All Thought Becomes an Image

June 23 - July 30, 2022

Sugarlift presents new work by Israeli artist Yedidya Hershberg in “All Thought Becomes an Image”. This is the artist’s first solo show in New York.

In his new body of work, Hershberg creates with both observation and invention, yet his loyalties lie not with empiric reality, but with the demands of the picture alone. In Nudes in “Abu Tor”, the relationship between the figures and architecture offers a clue to Hershberg’s pictorial thinking. The geometry of the architrave, chair, and table establish scale and perspective and secure the work’s structural integrity. The solidity of these planes is reminiscent of Sassetta’s altarpieces while the forms of the figures recall the rhythms of Ingres’ Turkish Bathers. Here, the painting negotiates two competing notions of Disegno (the Italian concept of drawing and design) by reconciling the flat planes of Sienese art with the curvaceous articulations of Neoclassicism.

The painter is alert to the nuances of every angle, crop, and placement so that spatial relationships are rendered implicit. Often, a nude will be set against the silhouette of a black armchair so that contour, line, and gesture are given their full force of expression. Sometimes, an idealized female body will be offset by a more angular and jarring element. In “Nude with Blackbuck” and “Transfiguration”, the motif of the wounded antelope (a borrowing from Mughal art) performs a similar function to that of the devils in Sienese panels. The agonized contortions of the animal not only introduce an element of discord and pain but also throw the sensuous volumes of the figure into relief. In these moments, Yedidya dangles the narrative bait, but he is never seduced by the temptation to tell a story. Painting is, he insists, its own art of fiction.

Yedidya Hershberg was born on August 4, 1988 in Jerusalem, Israel, to painters Israel Hershberg and Yael Scalia. At age 14, Hershberg began joining the Jerusalem Studio School summer programs in Italy, and by the age of 18, he participated in the Jerusalem Studio School's full-time Master Class program. After completing his studies, he moved to Brooklyn, NY, where he lived and worked for 3 years. In 2014, Hershberg went on to attain his MFA from the University of New Hampshire on full scholarship. Lacking identification with the prospect of professorship in academia, Yedidya resolved to return to Israel and reestablish the Jerusalem Studio School. Yedidya presently resides in Jerusalem, Israel. He is the Director of the Jerusalem Studio School and an Assistant Master Class Instructor at JSS In Civita Summer Art School & Residency in Italy. He is currently represented by Rothschild Fine Art, Tel Aviv.