In the Gallery: March 31 - May 9
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 2nd, 1:30 - 3:30pm

Anat Shiftan: The Garden is a solo exhibition with themes of the garden expressed in three-dimensional still life and centerpieces. Historically, still life depicts arranged elements from nature, life in the outdoors of the domestic world, and leans on the symbolic agency of these items to suggest a critique of the human condition. Inspired by the power of still life and the role of the centerpiece in domestic life, Anat creates arrangements that echo this history. She asks the viewer to question the legacy of nature, the botanical, and our material culture.

Artist Statement

The still life series examines the history of ceramics and world trade. The vignettes tell stories of various production methods, materials (porcelain stone ware etc.), and process of production (slip casting, wheel throwing, hand building and industrial artifacts). The juxtaposition of objects made in various ways and depicting distant moments in history and geography tell the story as a world of trade and travel since early days. The vignettes of Lekythos, Lotus Bowl, Wreath and Apple, brings into display Greek, Chinese and European heritage. This exchange prevalent since ancient time is a beautiful condition of humanity which I bring to light as positive aspects of cultural connections and exchange.

The Flora and Flora and Orchard series examine the ways we understand our world. Humanity and nature are often understood romantically in terms of growth and improvement. Yet, it is not always so. I shift the unbearable gaze onto the history of man: his wars and destruction and find that in nature too ambivalence prevails. The piles depict growth and decay, the organic and the mechanical aspects of nature, analogous to the human condition. Additionally, the natural world I create is imaginary versus realistic. This is a reflection of my condition where nature is an invented, unreachable, corrupted in time and by time, and exists only as an idea.

Purchase Works

Watch a past Artist Talk from Anat “In the Studio: Day After Day”, from our Virtual Library archive.

Artist Bio

Anat Shiftan is an Israeli artist who works in clay and print. In her work, she explores the subject of ambivalence in floral and zoological imagery, the representation of nature in art: the texture of sexuality, life and death, and power and subversion, all which ultimately reflect complex political and social attitudes. Currently, she also adds a layer of content that relates to issues of the environment and its preservation. Her printed images reflect on the dialectic relations between man and nature, focusing on the ambivalence reflected in the heroic yet destructive aspect of human intervention in nature, nature's response, and the resulting glorification of both. Shiftan received her BA in English Literature and Philosophy from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel and received her MFA in Ceramics from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Design in West Bloomfield, Michigan. She has taught at Bezalel Academy for Art and Design in Israel and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at SUNY New Paltz in the fall of 2003. Shiftan has twice received the Michigan Grant for Individual Artists and has exhibited her work extensively in both the United States and Israel. She is represented by Hostler Burrows gallery NY/LA.