Artist Mia Gourvitch received a studio space at Outset StudioMakers Tel Aviv for the preparation of her solo exhibition “Fruits of the Night”, presented at Indie Photography Group Gallery, curated by Ilanit Konopny and Irit Carmon Popper.
In Fruits of the Night, the artist Mia Gourvitch presents objects and photographs that undergone processing, disassembly, and reassembly as assemblages based on the amalgamation of historical narratives and cosmological phenomena. She traces the story of Schrattenberg Castle in Austria, where she stayed as an artist in residence, and the figure of Eleonora, the Princess of Schwarzenberg. Gourvitch wandered through the empty castle in the day and at night, photographing the ruins that emerge from the forest that has taken over the castle, and the forces of nature and the landscape that engulf it.
Upon her return to Israel, she continued to photograph and work in the urban space of Tel Aviv, collecting scraps of discarded furniture, renovating and reconstructing them. They became her objects, but at the same time, they also cling, connect, and fuse with images from times gone by. The castle takes on a new life, becoming an undead environment. She simulates hypnogogic hallucinations, consciousness between wakefulness and slumber, moments of visions, or lucid dreaming. Her artistic practice is influenced by the characteristics of Gothic art; fiction and fantasy veil the concrete elements in the works, formulating melancholy poetics through the strange, convoluted, sensual, spiritual, and marginal.
Gourvitch’s nocturnal photographs reveal the constellations, the movement of celestial bodies associated with the cyclicality of light and darkness, and explore metaphysical elements. With the recurring construction of compositions out of existing raw materials, the photographs and objects offer portals and passages into an imaginary or other state of being.
Mia Gourvitch Holds a B.Ed.FA from HaMidrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College. Her works have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Israel and Europe, including: the 5th and 6th Biennials for Drawing, Artists’ House and Print Workshop, Jerusalem; Freehome, Berlin; HotelPupik, Austria; Radial System, Berlin; Haifa Museum of Art; Tel Aviv Artists’ House; Kupferman Collection House, Kibbutz Lohamei Haghetaot; The Beit Shturman Museum, Ein Harod. In 2016, she presented a solo exhibition in Berlin as part of Was Biennale. Gourvitch is featured in Fontaine Contemporary.
