The series Land of Painting connects body and landscape in different ways. These are not generic bodies and landscapes, but rather the body of the painter and the landscape viewed from her studio. Years of working on the landscape (here and here, for example) form the foundation for this series, which brings the artist and the viewer into the composition.

  • רות קסטנבאום בן-דב, ארץ ציור, 2019
  • Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Walking: Earth, Flesh, Paint, 2018, five parts
  • רות קסטנבאום בן-דב, צל הרים/הורים, 2020, שמן על בד, 70/70 ס"מ. דמות מציירת נוף עם צל כפול על גבה
Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Land of Painting, 2019, combining landscape and body with a figure walking above the land on a slack line

Land of Painting, 2019, oil on canvas, 105×170 cm (41×67 in)

In the work Land of Painting (which shares the series’ title) a figure walks on a slackline over the Lower Galilee landscape, keeping balance with a paintbrush in hand. The landscape viewed is perplexing: it combines direct observation with aerial views, while juxtaposing near and far, with a close-up of the soil as well as a view of the entire land of Israel. The imagery suggests that the act of painting itself, as well as life in this place, are like walking a tightrope – suffused with both love and trepidation.

Detail of "Land of Painting" by Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov

Land of Painting, details

Detail from Land of Painting by Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov















In contrast with a traditional self-portrait in which the artist portrays her image apart from herself – her mirrored reflection – in most of the paintings in the series she is present inside her body and inside the painting; yet her image is incomplete, missing the face. Instead, attention is drawn to the feet. In Walking: Earth, Flesh, Paint, five images form a progression in movement and texture, ending (or beginning) with empty footprints in the soil.

Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Walking: earth, flesh, paint, 2018, oil on canvas

Walking: earth, flesh, paint, 2018, oil on canvas, 5 parts, each part 45×40 cm (18×16 in)

Two Swing paintings show the landscape from the viewpoint of a figure swinging.

Sky and earth viewed from a swing in two vertically adjoined canvases

Swing 1, 2019, oil on canvas, 2 parts, 140×60 cm (55×23.6 in) total

Galilee landscape from the point of view of a figure swinging on a swing, her feet and paint-stained pants in the foreground, with hands clutching swing chains at the lower edges

Swing 2, 2019, oil on canvas, 140×60 cm (55×23.6 in)

In Swing 1 sky and earth appear separately in two canvases showing the extremes of the swing’s motion, while Swing 2 presents a single, more holistic image of the world viewed from the swing. If the works viewed until now suggested an analogy between the act of painting (embodied by the reappearing paint-stained work clothes) and walking – on the ground or on a tightrope – or to swinging, Shomer Yisrael seems to liken painting to praying.

Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Shomer Yisrael, 2020, oil on canvas, 120 X 100 cm/47" X 39"; Galilee landscape from the vantage point of figure praying

Shomer Yisrael, 2020, oil on canvas, 120×100 cm (47×39 in)

A pair of works entitled Painting Landscape refer directly to the action of the hand while painting, just a moment before the first mark is made, in daylight and at dusk.

Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Painting Landscape (Day), 2020, oil on canvas, 140 X 70 cm; hand with brush opposite the Galilee landscape.

Painting Landscape (Day), 2020, oil on canvas, 140×70 cm (55×27.5 in)

Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Painting Landscape (Dusk), 2020, oil on canvas, 140 X 70 cm/ 55" X 27.5"; hand with brush opposite the Galilee landscape

Painting Landscape (Dusk), 2020, oil on canvas, 140×70 cm (55×27.5 in)

Unlike the other works in the series, in the next two paintings the head of the painter appears, with her viewpoint within the composition. Yet the shadow on her back (and the hand on her shoulder) represent an awareness of a viewer who is obstinately present throughout the creative process. This viewer, critical or encouraging, is a seemingly external figure, but perhaps is no other than the painter herself, the fruit of her consciousness, and its shadow is in her image or that of her parents, looking on.

Painter painting the landscape with shadow on her back and hand on her shoulder emerging from behind her.

The Blessing (and Curse) of Consciousness, 2020, oil on canvas, 110×40 cm (44×55 in)

Figure from behind painting the Galilee landscape with shadow of a couple on her back.

Shadows of Parents and Mountains, 2020, 70×70 cm (27.5×27.5 in)

Tightrope returns to the image of the painter walking on a rope above the landscape, and intensifies the meeting of close-up and faraway views. Yet who is approaching her from the other end of the rope?

Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Tightrope, 2020; figure walking on tightrope with aerial view of Israel

Strip of Land, 2020, oil on canvas, 120×100 cm (47×39 in)

Hashkiveinu (Lay us down in peace) and Modim (We give thanks) bring us back to prayer, and to the connection – almost an embrace – between body, text and landscape, with nighttime and daytime views.

Nighttime view with lights, and hand and body holding prayerbook at bottom.

Hashkiveinu (Lay us down in peace), 2021, oil on canvas, 140×70 cm (55×27.5 in)

Hands holding prayer book in foreground with Galilee landscape in background

Modim, 2021, oil on canvas, 33×71 cm (13×28 in)

Here, rather than the hands holding a printed book in front of the landscape, it is a sketchbook:

white shape of two pages with drawings of hands and landscape, leaving a triangular shape at top, with landscape and a hand holding the sketchbook.

Sketchbook with Landscape, 2021, oil on canvas, 42×42 cm (16.5×16.5 in)

This diptych brings together different viewpoints on the landscape: the view of Sachnin, painted from a rooftop in Eshchar, is juxtaposed with the view in the opposite direction, painted on a rooftop in Sachnin. More on the Rooftop Paintings here.

Two landscapes combining urban and countryside views, with hands on bannister at bottom.

Rooftop Paintings: Eshchar-Sachnin (morning); Sachnin-Eshchar (afternoon), 2021, oil on canvas, 73×95 cm (28.5×37.5 in) each

Each one of the two views:

Golden light over view of Sachnin, with hands on bannister at bottom.

Eshchar-Sachnin (morning), 2021, oil on canvas, 73×95 cm (28.5×37.5 in)

Urban landscape with mountains in background, and hands at bottom up close.

Sachnin-Eshchar (afternoon), 2021, oil on canvas, 73×95 cm (28.5×37.5 in)

Later works in the series, from 2022-2024:

Two paint-stained hands facing the viewer, with landscape in the background. In the right hand lies a bullet.

Landscape with Bullet, 2022, oil on canvas on wood, 24×35 cm (9.5×14 in)

three vertical narrow canvases, on right and center two figures appear at the end of a rope suspended above the landscape. At left, two figures appear at top and bottom of the canvas, approaching each other on a rocky path

Rope or Path?, triptych: at right, Do/Not Covet, 2021, oil on canvas, 170×45 cm (67×15.5 in)*; at center, Eretz Hemda (A desirable land), 2023, oil on canvas, 175×45 cm (69×17.5 in); at left, Path, 2023, oil on canvas, 180×50 cm (71×19.5 in)

 

These three paintings from 2023 each have hands holding a letter or notes.

Two hands holding a letter against a nighttime cloudy landscape

Air Letter, 2023, oil on canvas, 38×96 cm (15×38 in)

Two hands holding a note with the Hebrew words for "I don't know" written on it, against a nighttime landscape with dots of light.

I Don’t Know, 2023, oil on canvas, 38×96 cm (15×38 in)

Two hands holding an empty piece of paper, against a brightly lit nighttime landscape.

The Blank note, 2023, oil on canvas, 38×96 cm (15×38 in)

Work on these two square canvases, begun in the spring of 2023, became very important to me in the difficult months from the second half of October 2023 through the winter of 2024.

Bare feet at bottom of canvas walk on intricately depicted ground with flowers, rocks, and small objects. Toward the top of the canvas is a break, above which a distant landscape and sky.

Departure, 2024, oil on canvas, 100×100 cm (39×39 in)

Dark night landscape with light rope cutting across it diagonally, and flailing body parts indicating a figure about to fall off the rope.

Almost Falling, 2024, oil on canvas, 100×100 cm (39×39 cm)

Photography: Maya Lifshitz, Dror Miler and Yigal Pardo

* The painting Do/Not Covet was created as part of the project/exhibition “Commandments and Commitments,” initiated and curated by Idit Levavi Gabbai, and exhibited in 2022 at the Kupferman Collection House, Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot.

Land of Painting is on view in the Umm el-Fahem Museum of Art, from November 16, 2024 through April 1, 2025.
A selection from the series was exhibited in the solo show The Acrobat, in Tel Aviv in 2022, in the group show Derech Eretz in Yavne and Hoshaya in 2023, and in the group show Field of Vision at Kupferman House, Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, in 2020.