Talia Ben-Zion has been sculpturing for the past 6 years. In her life time the artist has handled extreme events and passed between sadness and happiness; "passages" that are expressed in her third solo exhibition. In the sculpturing process Talia Ben-Zion finds the maximum capability to express the diversity of feelings that fill her.
Her work is authentic, flowing and unique, both conceptually and regarding the link to life and the sequence of events. Some of the ideas for subjects and shapes were inspired by Talia's meditating, which explains their uniqueness.

The bronze sculptures are referring to the microcosms and macrocosms.
Some of the pieces describe elements from nature like: leaves, birds, plants, animals and certain stages in the life of a woman and her family. Other pieces deal with her private life; her overcoming an illness, her feelings, fears, worries, hopelessness and gratefulness for the healing. All of these are expressed in a series of creations that manifest visually a hint of what she has gone and is going through.

The names of the pieces in this group reflect the process: "The Message" - where you can see a figure of a woman with one breast; "Mortal Fear"- where the fear is visualized as a figure without a head; "My Hands are Tied" - an illustration of the helplessness and inability to act as they are reflected in a figure of a woman with her hands bound behind her back.
"Rebirth" - hands displayed figuratively, holding a shell; a shell which is a womb, femininity, passion and mystery. The artist creates once again and the hands are real. In "Renewal" out of a brown and rigid mass comes a golden, smooth, wavy element that seems like a flame, wave or a bird; the passage between dark and intimidating to bright and promising.
In the piece "Gratitude" we see a large hand sculptured schematically, holding a flower that resembles a firm tree stem and the edges look like leaves and birds. "Marionette at rest", where you see a petite woman sitting peacefully, while a big palm is connected to her by strings. In this work it seems that the sculptor lets herself rest after the storm she has gone through, but also expresses one of her great characters in her personality - the belief in a greater power that guides and protects us.

Hands are a fundamental subject in these works of art. In the piece "The Burden of Life" a handless figure carries a load on its back; to lighten the burden of life's weight, we see birds flying out of it. The birds in their flight are analogous to art that enables man to sore above day-to-day life and its burden.

"Innocence" shows a young boy rolling a wheel that holds a representation of earth's continents. We try to reach and influence the world, but can we, as individuals do that?

In the stage before the illness and healing the pieces described are mostly styled figures of women, some of which are minimalist in various stages of life: a woman lying, motherhood, family, a mother and a child (these works are not presented in this exhibition), and figures like the woman playing the harp, a figure with a Shofar (ram's horn), a figure with birds, an original "Hanukkah candlestick", rooster and fruits. The piece "Cycle of Life" describes flowingly the sequence of evolution from egg to fetus to figure; a figure which is influenced by the stresses of life appears later squeezed to the shape of a screw and a question mark, and in the end the soul is described in the shape of a bird.

The movement up and the use of symbols as birds and hands are recurring in most pieces.
The textures and colors are rich and diverse. The colorful spectrum is made by use of different patinas that create the colors of green, brown and blue. The bright gold is achieved by keeping the bronze in its original shade. Some pieces are mixes of several shades, while in others the contrast between the dark lower part to the high bright gold part is emphasized. The textures are also various: some of the sculptures are smooth and others are rough and grooved in different degrees of density.

Talia Ben-Zion, a graduate of the Bar-Ilan university, worked in the past in communications, graphics, stained glass and the making of jewelry. Today she is sculpturing with the guidance of the sculptor Yuri Matzkin. The poems are also a part of the need for self-expression, and occasionally they are the ones that finish and complete the work of sculpturing.

Dalia Hakker-Orion