Alejandra Okret- Portfolio

	"January Strawberries" Ikona Gallery, Campo di Ghetto, Venice International Holocaust Memorial Day January 2012 Curator: Ziva Kraus	Alejandra Okret, January Strawberries Hagai Segev Old family photos often remain concealed within the yellowing pages of moldy albums. Alejandra Okret has decided to take her family's old photo albums out of the attic and bring to light the unique story of her father and his family who escaped Vienna at the right time - just before it became impossible. Beyond the relatively simple act of taking the albums out and revealing their old black and white photos, Okret has done an art action of her own. As a painter, she has added her own colors and lines to the photos. By doing so, she herself became immersed in the original photo documents and transformed them into a new work of art relating to the history which unfolds through the images. >>
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	Furl and Unfurl Anna Epstein, Katya Oicherman, Alejandra Okret, Dorit Ringrat City Gallery of Rehovot, Rehovot Curator: Ora Kraus 23.1.11 to 20.3.2011	Alejandra Okret, Furl and Unfurl Ora Kraus Alejandra Okret creates works of art with tracing paper. The abstract forms are sometimes constructed from the tones of monochromatic surfaces. As well as painting, the artist builds objects from layers or rolls of tracing paper. The rolls of tracing paper are sometimes positioned inside sealed Perspex boxes which stand up, protecting their hidden secret. >>
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	Visual Thoughts Alejandra Okret, Miri Or, Judy Orstav Dwek Gallery, Mishkenot Sha'ananim, Yemin Moshe, Jerusalem Curator: Irena Gordon 16th July 2010- September 2010	Alejandra Okret, Visual Thinking Irena Gordon The exhibition presents three artists who combine the visual with the verbal and examine the relationship between them. It is not a theoretical act but an intimate practice necessary for them in the understanding of the way in which meaning is formed and how it connects to art, place and time. Their art deals with the inevitability of expression and with the paradox that lies in the need to express the world in spite of understanding the impossibility of grasping the things themselves. All three different bodies of work ask the viewer to pause a while, to listen and to let his gaze move freely from the outer to the inner and back again. >>
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	Ciao Milano Works on paper, Italy, 1998 Artist's House , Tel-Aviv 28.8.2008 Curator: Hagai Segev	Alejandra Okret, Ciao Milano Hagai Segev Over a decade ago, in the mid-90s, Alejandra Okret studied at the Milan Art Academy. Since returning to Israel, her unique work has developed into a little island of grace and fragility in the stormy art scene of Israel. Her art idiom has undergone a change in direction and it is now interesting to examine the change through the ways in which her work is expressed. >>

		Alejandra Okret, Ciao Milano Audrey Levy Alejandra Okret’s Ciao Milano is a prayer. In this work she dispatches an entreaty to the universe. Venturing on a life change, leaving her world in Milano behind and moving “home” to Israel, was laden with bittersweet emotions for the artist, back in 1998 when she parted ways from the Milanese art world she called home and began her new life in a then, ironically, unfamiliar place. In a frenzy of passion, she undertook to capture all that was and all that would be on scraps of squarish paper. Forty times she encapsulated herself, her emotions, her good-byes and her impending hellos in circles within squares. She had a message to send forth and after forty declarations, she finished, drained and relieved; she had said all there was to say. >>
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	Japana Ein Hod Museum 15.3.2008 Curator: Elinor Eshet	Alejandra Okret, Japana Elinor Eshet Alejandra Okret’s fantasy of an exotic East is unveiled in her new exhibit “Japana”. The show expresses the artist’s personal response to silk – an object of eternal fascination throughout the Far East and Europe. The sensuous feel of the fabric, its scent, transparency, bold vivid colors, and the mysterious secret of its creation are evoked in the work of the artist. >>
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	Pieces of Sky Nahshon Gallery, Kibbutz Nahshon October 2005 Curator: Yael Kaini	Alejandra Okret, Pieces of Sky Installation 3.40x 5.60 meters, glue , acrylic, ink, watercolor, pen on tracing paper. "And orders the stars in their watches in the firmament according to thy will." )The Sabbath Evening Prayer) When the world was still uncharted, travellers used the stars as a map. This work was developed as part of the “Japana / Silk Road” project, and later developed a life of its own. The project also constitutes a further step in the artist’s life-long interest in and observation of the stars in different geographical locations across the world. It is not an astronomically-accurate work, but rather a random scattering of stars across painted blue tracing paper, creating a patchwork of “pieces of sky”. >>
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	White Zen Popolus Gallery Tel-Aviv November 2001	Alejandra Okret, White Zen Popolus, a Gallery in a Shelter turns into a shelter of calmness. White – an escape into the world of Zen comes after the exhibition Postcards from the Edge. In Postcards… I dealt with the current violence and the suffering is causing, while White neglects all the turmoil. White is an excursion into purism (A movement that proposed a kind of painting in which objects were represented as powerful basic forms). The white of the used paint, the white (areas left empty of drawings) of the background and the white of the walls give a feeling of quiet. The Zen is express by my action of painting itself, and harmony felt on the works. An experience of silence, making Popolus a retreat.
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	"La hija del Viderio" (Glass Maker's Daughter) Artists' House, Jerusalem	Alejandra Okret, The Glass Maker's Daughter, la hija del vidriero The source of the name comes from the saying that one who is neither the son nor daughter of a glassmaker is unable to hide from view. Transparency and breakability is the core of these works. This transparency unveils the desire to contain something that in essence is diaphanous; therefore it exists and ceases to exist at the same time. Like dust in the air that can be seen only when a ray of light filters through the shutters, transparency exists, as well, only for a second, and a second later vanishes with the light. The paintings are the product of concentration, reduction and renewed spontaneity. Despite their transparency Okret’s works rouse the senses. They invite the viewer to experience the moment that material touches material.
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	Postcards from the Edge Hottentot Gallery, Haifa September 2001	Alejandra Okret, Postcards from the Edge Hagai Segev The work of Alejandra Okret has undergone a dramatic change in the last two years. This change is marked by a new insight of the Israeli culture and through a course of integration into it, turning her from an immigrant to a local. Alejandra Okret's works of just a few years ago were scented with a personal, sensitive and moving idiom. The iconography- if there was one- was of an abstract nature, moving far away from a reality of any kind. The subject matter was the line, the shape and the colour. These were minimalist works that plucked the cords of a sensitive soul, which pledges to express an innermost reality to the world outside. >>
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	Domestic Symphony Photos	Alejandra Okret, Domestic Symphony In photographic works, I find that the vision often strikes me instantaneously and I run for the camera. Most of the photographs here belong to a series that I called Sinfonia Domestica where the camera has supplanted the sketchbook and images that catch the eye are frozen in time with a click. The aesthetics of everyday life; common items and prosaic chores, together with studio magic, create a post-modern harmony. Whether viewed individually or as part of a series, some photographs hit like the sound of a strident trombone, while others release more tranquil, flute-like tones. They form a rhythm of life in the vernacular, with both its beauty and its ugliness."