Spirit of Time: Roni Baroth’s Spatial-Temporal Journey
An encounter with Roni Baroth’s previous paintings clearly shows that she works from observation while conducting an internal dialogue moving between interior and exterior. Recurring characteristic elements in her oeuvre are compositions structured through horizontal and vertical lines, colorfulness, materiality, and layers of paint in coordinated colors with nuances of light and shade. Reflections, erasures, clouding, and fragments of abstraction merge into private realistic objects. Her scenic and architectural realism has an added, rich, refined layer, powdered with the long-ago elegance of European Impressionism.
Baroth’s current exhibition, Spirit of Time is constructed of works made to process her experiences from exhibition visits over the past two years, from video art screened in contemporary art spaces of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, to their polar opposites- Classical artworks in the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay – through to archaeological finds in the Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem.
The works on view are neither neutral transcriptions of reality, nor are they exaggerated in the direction of hyperrealism: some sections of the canvas are vague, blurred, or distorted.
Baroth does not commit herself to convey visual reality onto the canvas. She is committed to her own internal dialogue with herself, wholeheartedly dedicated to the genuine emotion arising from this reality. We may see the traces of her internal discourse as the artwork comes into being. An extended look at the canvas enables the viewer to better know the painted object and the painter.
“For me, believability and internal truth are not embodied in faithfulness to facts, but in the readiness to convey the sensation.” (Andrei Tarkovsky)
In a conversation with Baroth, she shared her thoughts on values, processes, past situations, wondering where humanity is headed. What is truly real? What is really true? Insights from visits to various exhibitions, encounters with museum guards, wondering what they have in common with the human figures screened on the TV, or the shadows of other exhibition-goers on the wall. Feelings when facing a sculpture by Donatello, looking at her own multiplied reflection in a mirror, moving further and further away. Sensations from these encounters are placed on canvas with intimacy, devotion, and self-awareness.
“At present, it seems much more important to me to speak not about art in general…but about life itself, since without understanding its significance, the artist almost certainly is incapable of expressing anything meaningful in his art language.”
(Andrei Tarkovsky)

Gabi Yair
Exhibition Curator