Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant

Tali Tamir

Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant

Tali Tamir

Mirit Ben Nun

Born August 8, 1966
These paintings express a personal need to delineate images and fantasies abundant with color and emotional explosion. Signs, lines and the materials appear of their own volition and develop as an external language bridging the eye, the hand and the painted surface.
During the making of a painting the power of the shapes emanate from an unconscious and concealed inner dimension. Line by line, painting after painting while repeating shapes and patterns, a creation evolves into new shapes and patterns. With a determination that reaches obsession, Mirit Ben-Nun keeps on returning to her art of meticulous decoration. A strong presence of
primitive ornamentation provides the artwork with a tribal facet on one hand and a feminine touch on the other, encompassing embroidery, bead threading and weaving
among others. Ben- Nun’s beautifying urge carries within it an archetypal strata, mythic at times, which empowers her authentic expression.

Dr. Gidion Ofrat and Ami Steinitz

Mirit Ben Nun

Born August 8, 1966
These paintings express a personal need to delineate images and fantasies abundant with color and emotional explosion. Signs, lines and the materials appear of their own volition and develop as an external language bridging the eye, the hand and the painted surface.
During the making of a painting the power of the shapes emanate from an unconscious and concealed inner dimension. Line by line, painting after painting while repeating shapes and patterns, a creation evolves into new shapes and patterns. With a determination that reaches obsession, Mirit Ben-Nun keeps on returning to her art of meticulous decoration. A strong presence of
primitive ornamentation provides the artwork with a tribal facet on one hand and a feminine touch on the other, encompassing embroidery, bead threading and weaving
among others. Ben- Nun’s beautifying urge carries within it an archetypal strata, mythic at times, which empowers her authentic expression.

Dr. Gidion Ofrat and Ami Steinitz

Mirit Ben Nun

Born August 8, 1966
These paintings express a personal need to delineate images and fantasies abundant with color and emotional explosion. Signs, lines and the materials appear of their own volition and develop as an external language bridging the eye, the hand and the painted surface.
During the making of a painting the power of the shapes emanate from an unconscious and concealed inner dimension. Line by line, painting after painting while repeating shapes and patterns, a creation evolves into new shapes and patterns. With a determination that reaches obsession, Mirit Ben-Nun keeps on returning to her art of meticulous decoration. A strong presence of
primitive ornamentation provides the artwork with a tribal facet on one hand and a feminine touch on the other, encompassing embroidery, bead threading and weaving
among others. Ben- Nun’s beautifying urge carries within it an archetypal strata, mythic at times, which empowers her authentic expression.

Dr. Gidion Ofrat and Ami Steinitz

Mirit Ben Nun

Born August 8, 1966
These paintings express a personal need to delineate images and fantasies abundant with color and emotional explosion. Signs, lines and the materials appear of their own volition and develop as an external language bridging the eye, the hand and the painted surface.
During the making of a painting the power of the shapes emanate from an unconscious and concealed inner dimension. Line by line, painting after painting while repeating shapes and patterns, a creation evolves into new shapes and patterns. With a determination that reaches obsession, Mirit Ben-Nun keeps on returning to her art of meticulous decoration. A strong presence of
primitive ornamentation provides the artwork with a tribal facet on one hand and a feminine touch on the other, encompassing embroidery, bead threading and weaving
among others. Ben- Nun’s beautifying urge carries within it an archetypal strata, mythic at times, which empowers her authentic expression.

Dr. Gidion Ofrat and Ami Steinitz

Mirit Ben Nun

Born August 8, 1966
These paintings express a personal need to delineate images and fantasies abundant with color and emotional explosion. Signs, lines and the materials appear of their own volition and develop as an external language bridging the eye, the hand and the painted surface.
During the making of a painting the power of the shapes emanate from an unconscious and concealed inner dimension. Line by line, painting after painting while repeating shapes and patterns, a creation evolves into new shapes and patterns. With a determination that reaches obsession, Mirit Ben-Nun keeps on returning to her art of meticulous decoration. A strong presence of
primitive ornamentation provides the artwork with a tribal facet on one hand and a feminine touch on the other, encompassing embroidery, bead threading and weaving
among others. Ben- Nun’s beautifying urge carries within it an archetypal strata, mythic at times, which empowers her authentic expression.

Dr. Gidion Ofrat and Ami Steinitz

Mirit Ben Nun

Born August 8, 1966
These paintings express a personal need to delineate images and fantasies abundant with color and emotional explosion. Signs, lines and the materials appear of their own volition and develop as an external language bridging the eye, the hand and the painted surface.
During the making of a painting the power of the shapes emanate from an unconscious and concealed inner dimension. Line by line, painting after painting while repeating shapes and patterns, a creation evolves into new shapes and patterns. With a determination that reaches obsession, Mirit Ben-Nun keeps on returning to her art of meticulous decoration. A strong presence of
primitive ornamentation provides the artwork with a tribal facet on one hand and a feminine touch on the other, encompassing embroidery, bead threading and weaving
among others. Ben- Nun’s beautifying urge carries within it an archetypal strata, mythic at times, which empowers her authentic expression.

Dr. Gidion Ofrat and Ami Steinitz

Mirit Ben Nun

Born August 8, 1966
These paintings express a personal need to delineate images and fantasies abundant with color and emotional explosion. Signs, lines and the materials appear of their own volition and develop as an external language bridging the eye, the hand and the painted surface.
During the making of a painting the power of the shapes emanate from an unconscious and concealed inner dimension. Line by line, painting after painting while repeating shapes and patterns, a creation evolves into new shapes and patterns. With a determination that reaches obsession, Mirit Ben-Nun keeps on returning to her art of meticulous decoration. A strong presence of
primitive ornamentation provides the artwork with a tribal facet on one hand and a feminine touch on the other, encompassing embroidery, bead threading and weaving
among others. Ben- Nun’s beautifying urge carries within it an archetypal strata, mythic at times, which empowers her authentic expression.

Dr. Gidion Ofrat and Ami Steinitz

Punto. Dos puntos ... Puntos ... Mirit Ben Nun

Cuando la pintura aborigen (de las tribus aborígenes australianas) fue revelada a Occidente, en los años 70' del siglo pasado, inyectó una nueva adrenalina en la pintura moderna y fue rápidamente aceptada, no solo como legítima sino también como influyente e inspiradora. Es un arte tribal, que satisface las necesidades rituales de crear símbolos religiosos y de una estética fluida caracterizada por los colores de la tierra. También artistas africano-occidentales contemporáneos, como Chris Opili y Vinka Shonibary, han enfatizado elementos similares en su trabajo y han desviado la atención hacia la misma continua necesidad de crear superficies con puntos de color, que provocan placer visual gracias a su textura aterciopelada, rica en colores y formas sinuosas.

No hay duda de que de allí surge la pintura de Mirit Ben Nun, que aparece como un meteorito refrescante en nuestro cielo ya saturado de un arte repleto de mensajes e imágenes fotográficas. Como artista autodidacta, ella creció fuera del bien lubricado sistema de las academias de arte, y no sufre por la búsqueda constante de sentido y contenido. Su pintura irrumpe como emergente de una necesidad primaria de provocar a la superficie pictórica, de atacarla con una obsesión sin freno, que no deja rincones ocultos. La necesidad de expresión no se detiene ni por un momento, quiere continuar fluyendo junto con la tempestuosa agitación anímica, tal vez para apaciguar a los demonios que andan corriendo en su interior. Esta pintura atrae y arrastra porque es primigenia, libre de justificaciones y de sentimientos de culpabilidad por ser "no intelectual". Proviene del mismo lugar donde se generan los impulsos creativos-psíquicos inconscientes, no adaptados todavía al lenguaje de códigos que requieren ser descifrados.

El espectador de Mirit Ben Nun es "atacado" por la abundancia de color, por formas decorativas repetitivas, y por imágenes comparativas que pueden identificarse y captarse rápidamente. Para el ojo acostumbrado a esta sofisticada forma de arte, esto es como aspirar una ráfaga de belleza instantánea.

Tal vez este es el tiempo y el lugar de volver a reflexionar sobre las profundas raices de una cultura que va ramificándose, que durante generaciones ha sido cubierta por una gruesa capa de teorías y de "…ismos"

David Gerstein