"January Strawberries" - Alejandra Okret

Ikona Gallery, Campo di Ghetto, Venice

International Holocaust Memorial Day
January 2012

Curator: Ziva Kraus

"As a painter, she has added her own colors and lines to the photos."

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.
Hence, this act of involvement or change is one of transforming a photographic object into a personal work of art.  This is a most intimate connection, of the highest level, bonding and meshing together her father and his life story, with the contemporary tale of Alejandra the artist.
An old-new story of a father-daughter relationship is created.  In parallel, Okret’s fresh take on the family recollections makes them relevant and conveys them to the public at large through her personal artistic act.  Okret has also produced an artist’s book, "Frutilla, Fragole, Strawberries" that connects the two artists (the man of theater and the woman of art) and bridges the gap formed over decades of individual and public history.
After so many years of concentrated endeavor, what began as an intimate artistic action became a public work of art that is to be examined using additional criteria - critical, historical, humanistic and cultural.

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