Darryl Erez-Hutchison: Palimpsest
Omer Tiroche Gallery is proud to present Palimpsest, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Darryl Erez-Hutchison curated by Mor Reshef Sivan. The term ‘Palimpsest’ comes from the Latin reference to an ancient manuscript that has been erased in order to make space for new text, often leaving behind faint traces of what was written before. Similarly, Erez-Hutchison’s paintings are made up of translucent overlapping imagery each representing different stages in his life. This new, autobiographical body of work focuses on the artist’s childhood in Northern Ireland as well as his present-day life in Israel.
Erez-Hutchison draws inspiration from memories of his hometown and combines them with the comopolitain beach environment of Tel Aviv. He is influenced by multi-referential symbolism representing his past, present and future. Although the artist begins with a sketch of a symbolic landscape or architectural structure, he has no fixed preconception of the finished painting, opting instead to allow the work to take its own form. Erez-Hutchison refers to this process as an archaeological excavation of his life, as the works delve into his past and form a synopsis of his identity on which he continues to build.
Included in the exhibition is the work, Samson and Goliath, 2020, the artist’s largest scale painting to date. This piece is made up of layers of various images from his childhood, most noticeably featuring the renowned yellow cranes of Belfast, which share the same title as the work. These cranes can be seen from almost everywhere in Belfast, where the artist was born, and have become a core symbol of the city’s identity. The repetitive, harsh geometric lines of this industrial scene contrast with the artist’s use of soft pastel colours that emanate the natural light of the seaside city of Tel Aviv. Erez-Hutchison combines the two landscapes and deconstructs them into geometric shapes which form the basis of other works in the exhibition.
A recurring motif in Erez-Hutchison’s work is the use of red lines to frame specific sections of the painting. These are reminiscent of borders marked on a map and serve as a subtle hint towards the daily religious divide that is rife in both Northern Ireland and Israel. In addition, Erez-Hutchison takes the concept of identity in these works further and links the geographical locations of the two countries to his own identity.
By examining the artist’s work in connection with the idea of ‘Palimpsest’, this exhibition highlights the multiplicity of layers that make up one’s identity and explores the theme from a unique perspective. Through his many references to memories collected throughout his life in Northern Ireland and Israel, Erez-Hutchison’s new body of work is the artist’s most personal and revealing to date. Erez-Hutchison creates a link between a Palimpsest manuscript and its element of duality with writings from the past and present to his own work, making it a metaphor for the different layers of memory that he has carried with him from the past through to the present.
Darryl Erez-Hutchison was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and grew up in Armagh. He graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland with First Class Honours in 2007. He met his Israeli wife in Mexico and moved to Israel in 2013 after an exchange programme at Bezalel School of Art and Design. This is Erez-Hutchison’s first solo exhibition in Tel Aviv, where he now lives and works.
