ANAT FLUKSMAN
Being Clean
Anat Fluksman (b.1959, Israel)
” Without manipulating by computer-whatever
appeared- becomes the absolute most it can be at the moment and I’m often amazed at the shapes and forms that appeared. I trust that the poetry will follow. The act of taking the pictures is planned, but the pictures are arisen spontaneously and create all kinds of forms and shapes that strengthens my connection with my reality. I love the fact that everyone can see different meaning in the pictures and getting connected to the inner self. The images compel the viewer to consider a layer unseen reality, not based in logic. I like my photographs to give
a feeling of looking at a hidden form and shapes we don’t normally see and create a visual dichotomy between the known and unknown, the seen and unseen. My art is a way to express my world. I use photography as a means of self healing. My art is my voice.”
Being Clean
This collection of photographs was made in the last 3 years.
My photography work is more of an abstract art. For me, abstract photography is a bridge that connects our everyday world with imaginary worlds, places that are no less real just because we can’t touch them. We should be content with seeing them through the eye of abstraction.
Although the images are highly personal representations of my dreams, thoughts and personal reality, they are abstract enough to allow individual interpretation based on each individual’s history and life experiences. I hope to engage the viewers with the image to allow them to leave the reality that they hold true and explore even if only for an instant and venture into the visual placeholder of my thoughts and feelings.
After my cancer experience on 2008, I found myself dealing with the question that people were used to ask me after I was done with the chemotherapy- ” ARE YOU CLEAN?” It was a very embarrassing question for me because I couldn’t agree with the connection between being healthy and being clean or being sick and dirty. I found myself trying to find a way to clean myself from this ‘dirt”. In my dreams, all kinds of cars began to appear. Sometimes it was my car or my father’s car and the main issue was – ” I can’t find the car, I don’t remember where I parked it…
It was clear that I’m looking for something missing.
At the same time I started to take photos from inside my car while I’m passing through the car washing machines. That became, in a short time very obsessively. I took my car very often to clean it, I took the other family’s cars and took hundreds of photographs. I can tell that this act was very relieving. I think that it was a very deep emotional process.
Read the full article on Israeli Lens Magazine Issue #12 Water&Underwater Photography
