Hallel

In Hallel, Oren Fischer's work across painting, large-scale textiles, wooden sculpture, and etchings illuminate the elements of the soul, touching upon themes from heritage and spirituality to belonging and isolation. The title, translating from Hebrew to "praise," expresses gratitude—for love, for ancestral wisdom, for home. Moving between the figurative and the abstract, the personal and the symbolic, Fischer reflects on the rituals, landscapes, and histories that shape both individual and collective identity and experience. Several bodies of work are presented in the exhibition, representing the breadth of Fischer's multidisciplinary practice and his fluid approach to the making and recontextualization of art objects, installation, and performance. The large-scale draped canvases were originally created as an immersive set for a performance presented in Israel, complete with actors dressed in the artist's handmade galabiyas. The 14 canvases, six of which are displayed in the gallery, form a temple where ancient history, contemporary reality, and secular spirituality meet. Exile and Ascent tells the story of the Jewish people's Exodus from Egypt, while Mother Goddess represents the eternal power of the natural world. In The Mother's Plight, a woman is depicted carrying her child, a soldier, like Abraham sacrificing Isaac. The soldier's rifle is aimed at her womb; her sacrifice is for nothing. The work is critical—of Israelis who think they are fighting for something other than corrupt leaders—while the pain of loss is acknowledged and held alongside the beauty of life in this imagined temple of prayer. Stripes, vibrant colors, and rich symbolism are a through-line across the work, as is the marriage of past with present and pain with joy. These elements emerge in Fischer's A Bird on Cypress paintings, however through a more intuitive process than the narrative canvases. The paintings are cut and mounted to wood, exposing black voids beneath the colorful surface. The title references a children's song about dancing around a cypress, the tree grown in cemeteries. Lyrics from the song appear in speech bubbles among many other symbols, such as children for fertility and fish for protection against the evil eye. Anthropomorphic wooden sculptures lining the walls of the gallery envelop the viewer—like a forest of trees or a crowd of people. The imagined characters represent a harmonious vision of Israeli society, with people from all walks of life, both Jewish and Arab, depicted on branches that are carved, painted, and wrapped with fabric. The hope for harmony is expressed, as is the shared ancestral tie to the land. Fischer's panoramic engagement with themes related to society and humanity shifts seamlessly to the local scale. His focus turns to his own neighbors in Samar Today, an installation of handwritten newspapers that he wrote while living on a kibbutz in the desert for three years. A kibbutz is a type of community in Israel organized around collective work and property. In the shared dining room each evening, people would share their stories and news of the day. Fischer recorded and transformed these accounts into a sensationalized documentation of their community, making members of their 100-person community feel like celebrities. Fischer's etchings, made while in residence at the Gottesman Etching Center, present scenes real and imagined, with subjects ranging from the story of Adam and Eve to the artist's self-portrait. His work bridges the gap between history and present-day, illustrating a vision of contemporary life, identity, and society that is an embodiment of all that came before and a hope for a brighter future. Oren Fischer (b. 1984) is an Israeli multidisciplinary artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, video, and public art. His practice examines personal and collective memory, Israeli identity, urban culture, and the relationship between art and public space. Fischer combines figurative imagery, text, graphic elements, and references drawn from local visual culture. His work moves between studio-based practice and site-specific projects, often addressing the connection between individual experience and broader social and cultural narratives. His work has been presented in museums, galleries, art fairs, festivals, and public spaces, including Sotheby's Tel Aviv, the Nahum Gutman Museum of Art, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Düsseldorf City Museum, and the Israel Festival. He has also collaborated with Greenpeace, educational institutions, community organizations, and social initiatives. Fischer received the Hammer Prize at the Fresh Paint Art Fair in 2019 and the Jury Prize at the Cannes Dance Film Festival in 2023. Havurah is a collective representing the next generation of exceptional Jewish artists around the world. They are a Gen-Z led non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of Jewish culture for the 21st Century. Havurah produces media, events, gallery shows, magazines, festivals, content, concerts, and more that together fabricates a vibrant, young cultural audience around Jewish art.

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