A place of honor is preserved for stone in Israeli art: from Melnikov’s Roaring Lion through Danziger’s Nimrod, to hundreds of stone monuments and memorials erected along the country’s highways, especially along the northern roads. Treatment of stone is hard, “male,” connoting acts such as “conquest” and “occupation.” The mosaic is indeed made of stone, striving for eternity, yet it combines both the simplicity and the genius typical of a handicraft.
The alternative mode of presenting the “mosaic” or “faux mosaic” on a “faux wood” or “faux marble” Formica surface characterizes the artist’s earlier works as well, providing an elaboration of her inquiry into Israeli myths that convey a relation to the Place.
Instead of turning to the past to establish the right over lands and stones, the link between the ancient mosaic floors and the Formica doors recently torn off their hinges elicits questions and dichotomies: origin versus imitation, eternity versus transient everyday life, rootedness versus detachment, and the misleading promise of the thin and shiny Formica coating, despite the particleboard gradually swelling beneath it.

* Yesusum = rejoice, as in the Biblical verse: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose… for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.” (Isaiah 35: 1-6)

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