Siri Berg: Kabbalah Paintings @ David Richard Gallery, New York (Sept 5-Oct 5)
New York, NY–David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Siri Berg: The Kabbalah Paintings from the 1980s, on view from September 5 to October 5, 2023. The exhibition features paintings on canvas and paper mounted on stretched linen by the Swedish-American artist, renowned for her decades-long study of color and its meditative and transcendental nature. This is the first presentation of Berg’s work with the gallery and the first major survey of her work since her death in 2020.
The exhibition focuses on a perceptive series of works painted in the 1980s which intuitively address the Ten Sefirot of the Kabbalah—ten complimentary emanations through which the divine reveals itself in Jewish mystical tradition. Berg interprets these emanations by means of subtle color gradations arranged in concentric forms. Many of these works utilize texture and the way light dances and plays across her painted surfaces. These dynamic compositions, many of which are the largest created by the artist, offer dimensional tonal gradations of fleshy pinks, earthy yellows, and field drab greys—terrestrial allusions to the spiritually enlightened.
In these works, many of which have never been previously exhibited, one sees Berg’s repeated conceptual framework of evolving cause and effect from the Infinite to the Finite in systematizing the Kabbalah. This also includes permutations of binary formal properties including compositional formats such as horizontal versus square perimeters and single versus double concentric structures within a given composition; saturated versus de-saturated color palettes; flat versus highly textured painted surfaces; hard edged versus diffused borders of geometric forms; and mirror images of such binary properties both within a single structure and composition or across different compositions.
Berg was perennially inspired by the color studies of Johannes Itten (1888-1967) and Josef Albers (1888-1976), whereby her Kabbalah works built on their optical, scientific rigor with a metaphysical tenor. Reinterpreting this subject of Jewish mysticism, Siri used color, value, and design to express an ascending and descending order through value gradations from dark to light as a way to “resolve opposing aspects of life as they relate to abstract art.”
As her research into the Kabbalah began to explode, Berg wrote in October 1984: “I plan to continue my exploration of how abstract painting can illuminate the mystical content and value of the Kabbalah.”
“I became interested in the figurative presentation of the Ten Sefirot from The Kabbalistic treatise by Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (1522-1570) and was impressed by the simplicity of its form. What struck me was how a simple form could visually represent so complex and intellectually profound a subject matter [...] Using color, value and design to express the ascending and descending order from the lowest to the highest - thus equating in visual language the lowest with the darkest and the lightest or the “light” with the lightest [...] I was especially attract-ed to the configuration because in all my work I have used form, not as a design element but as a vehicle for the search for unending intellectual and creative expression. This has permitted me to probe, to stretch, to develop, to evolve without distraction and constraint.”
Opening reception: Thursday, September 14 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM
David Richard Gallery, LLC
526 West 26th Street, Suite 311 | New York, NY 10001
P: (212) 882-1705
