Born 1975, Israel
2005-2006 / Master class at the Jerusalem
Studio School (instructor Israel Hershberg)
2004 / BFA, Fine Art Department,
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design,
Jerusalem
1999-2002 / Actor degree from the
Nisan Nativ acting studio, Jerusalem

Dan Orimian in conversation with Ram Rahamim
 





Ram: It is fascinating to see a place moments before disaster strikes. People are 
oblivious to the dangers the artist observes in everyday life.

 
Dan: Everybody see them, but there is a mechanism that protects us from full
exposure. The painting allows the anxiety to seep in. My choice of imagery
stems from this place. The same goes for the manner of painting, it is not
executed peacefully. It takes me some time to start the painting; I work with
intense images that I can only hurl at the canvas with very specific energy.
I feel the paintings give you the license to use very different photographs –
for instance photographs from the internet, or photographs from your photo
album. In the paintings you transform innocent photographs into a catastrophic
scene, in an instant a campsite with sleeping bags becomes a battlefield.
 
R: The paintings linger in the preceding moment, the moment on the brink.
In many cases the latent potential will not be realized, it will not end in
disaster. People jog on the boardwalk, or hike on the pier, they are not
running away from anything. The interesting place is the place of the
speculation, the fantasy. It is an attempt to paint the fear of the unknown,
to push to the surface moments of existential anxiety, of shortness of
breath. That is my strange way of dealing with the shock, I suppose…
The terror is not necessarily found in the dark night, even in the sunlit day
we are constantly afraid. David Avidan wrote about the disaster lurking like
a knife hidden in the grass (in the poem Incident), someone will inevitably
step on it.
 
D: In the current works there is a major function to the contrast between
night and day. Already at the stage of processing the photograph, things

that are on the border between darkness and light are blurred. Just like
military night vision apparatus transforms the world into a monochromatic
image resembling a negative. It transformed the complete darkness into a
mysterious world where things you do not necessary want to know about
take place.
 
R: There is also a different side to these paintings, one that I interpret as naïve,
boyish, or simply reluctant to grow up. Why did you choose photographs
from the past and particularly from the high school years?
 
D: In the past year I wanted to work with personal images, out of a desire to
start from an authentic place, I guess, one that the senses still remember
in a way. This is about revisiting a charged time, even if it seems that we
have left it behind. It seems that many issues I still explore today started
at an early stage, for instance – the social confrontation of the individual
facing the power of the group. It starts with the little things: a group of
good kids sits around the bonfire. The painting starts with a memory, “I
was there, in that place”. But it isn’t completely clear, the power of the
painting lies in the fact that it leaves things open.
 
R: To me, the game is fixed; you can not have smooth sailing through adolescence,
particularly puberty, age 15, 16, 17 is catastrophic and awkward.
 
D: I think of a trip to the desert in the context of the fantasy of the unmediated
connection to nature as a place that strips down the masks. Suddenly
relationships, desires and social circle are unveiled in all their force.
 
R: Your paintings are very physical in their format and the brush strokes. You
have captured situations that have humor and playfulness, and yet, despite
the nostalgic pangs, when I see the male figures in the paintings, I think of
violence and rape.
 
D: I don’t feel that I have a social role, or that I am trying to tone it down
and you are emphasizing its importance. 

You have the freedom to sit and fantasize.  

To keep looking for the drama in a place where supposedly nothing



happens.

 

 
[Ram Rahamim is an actor, director and acting teacher].