Wild Exaggeration

Ofir Dor

The figures in Ofir Dor's monumental paintings seem to be taking part in meaningful theatrical or allegorical-psychological scenes. These eccentric, surreal figures are characterized by an extreme sexual presence, mysterious expressions and distorted gestures, their faces sometimes masked. The meta-narratives they are taking part in present conflicted, heated relationships under the guise of civilized behavior. Motel 2 (2006) features two figures in a standard hotel room, naked from the waist down: one, wearing a kind of lizard costume, lies on the bed, while the other, dressed as a rabbit, stands by. The scene's perverse sexual ambiguity heightens its grotesque character. The drama in Mud Man (2006), where man and costume are less easily distinguishable, has to do with "the mud man" breaking into an elegant bourgeois space and preying on the stunned couple who lives there. Artists (2006) further develops Dor's grotesque rhetoric, here turned against the art world. The six "artists" seen in the painting are frozen in a dark space with smoldering windows; they are distorted and strange and their facial expressions convey revulsion and disgust. The artist's gloomy image as a creature thrust into extreme circumstances, veiled in Eros and mystery, is revealed sharply as a reflexive metaphor for exclusion.

Born in Ramatayim, 1972; lives and works in Berlin