Freud 101: Memories and Dreams

Naming an exhibition “Memories and Dreams” is bound to create a sense of ambiguity: Should one expect canvases painted in hazy dream-like blues? A display of Turner-like reproductions? The artwork of Shraga Weil, recently exhibited at the Pucker Gallery, deals with a seemingly incoherent choice of subject matter, but presents ambiguities that urge for interpretation.

Rams, fires and branches are usually not the subjects one associates with visual art, yet Weil is able to combine these diverse subjects through his exceptional use of color and texture.

Weil’s colors and textures may put other artists to shame—his vibrant colors become all the more apparent when placed next to Joseph Ablow’s exhibit, also recently being shown at the Pucker Gallery. While the former pulses with energy, the latter appears dull and tepid by comparison.

Explaining his latest works as inspiration from the Jewish secular culture and tradition, Weil may easily mislead the viewer into seeing these paintings solely as celebratory art. Entering the exhibit, the viewer is immediately confronted by the cheerful oranges, reds, cinnamons and golds that dominate almost all of his paintings. The bright colors of the paintings create a startling contrast against the gallery’s white walls.

In one of the more memorable works, titled “From the Sources,” Weil paints a pair of hands holding a paint brush. The range of oranges in this canvas alone is impressive: While the background is painted loosely in a happy mango orange, the shade gradually merges into the russet-orange of the hands, and finally to a lemony yellow evoking the images of autumn leaves. While much of the paint is loosely layered, a thin layer of pastel blues and khaki greens can be identified underneath the intense oranges. These blues and greens are made visible through the artist’s manipulation of paint with a palette knife.

Weil painstakingly outlines these hands with charcoal rather than with loose oil paints. These lines of charcoal are so soft, however, that the distinction between oil paints and charcoal is difficult to identify. This rich use of texture, coupled with the swirling blends of oranges and yellows, creates an effect that is both stunning yet soothing.

A similar soothing sense of color continues throughout the exhibit, and the viewer may well blissfully ponder Weil’s celebration of cultural heritage before realizing the juxtaposition between subject matter and color. In the “Memories and Dreams” catalogue, Weil constantly asserts his “atheistic philosophy,” where he distinctly separates culture from religion and states that he has no interest in religious ritual or faith.

Paradoxically, many of Weil’s paintings draw from the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, where God demands Abraham to sacrifice his son. The ram motif becomes a representation of Isaac. Weil’s subject matter confronts rather than soothes, demanding questions of a God that requires sacrifice.

Weil’s interest in the story of Abraham and Isaac traces back to the early 1970s, when Weil’s only son was killed by a tractor. Shaped by major events of war and loss, many of his images display a need for answers despite his asserted atheism. The painting titled “The Ram in the Thicket” shows a ram walking heedlessly into a thicket that will ultimately lead to its destruction. The bright colors present a false facade of serenity. Happy-faced yellows and sea green create a lovely effect while obscuring the underlying tensions within the subject matter of the painting.

Similar contrasts can be found in Weil’s other paintings. “Memories of a Sacrifice” shows the skull of a ram over bound branches. The bright oranges and reds again obscure the underlying anxiety of the painting. Although the ram is given for sacrifice, the viewer is aware of Weil’s bitter confrontation—Can we really escape the ram’s fate in the face of God’s demands?

The artist’s desire for answers becomes even more apparent in “Together.” While at first glance, the painting appears to depict a family portrait, a closer look reveals the characters of Abraham, Isaac and a ram. Not only is the ram bound, however, but Isaac is also bound as a sacrifice.

The viewer is jolted from an uplifting message of family to the realization of impeding death and annihilation of Isaac and the ram. God does not demand one, but two sacrifices. The relationship between Genesis 22 and Weil’s personal loss and grief comes across powerfully, and the viewer begins to sense how our own fates may not be free from God’s demands.

“Memories and Dreams” is not an exhibit merely of color, texture or beauty. Nor is it decorative art celebrating Israeli motifs or Biblical scenes. It is an exhibit fraught with profound personal meaning, which raises provoking questions about theology.