Counterpoise @ the Singleton Regional Gallery May – August 2026
Counterpoise is a collection of artworks inspired by the natural surroundings in which I live, highlighting the confluence of forces that shape a place’s unique character. My artistic practice has been shaped by five decades of work across four continents—from my upbringing in Israel and studies in Vienna to a decade each in New York and Sydney. Moving between cultures and languages, I found that connecting to the natural environment became my way of making sense of the world; the landscape served as a constant point of reference when settling into a new place.
Today, my studio sits on five acres in the Upper Hunter Valley, cradled between a river and the ranges. Here, my work does not dwell on grand vistas but instead on the subtle, the overlooked, and the nearly invisible. I do not seek to document these surroundings; instead, I follow intuitive sparks to record memories and experiences, exploring the reciprocal relationship between humans and nature.
The focus of this collection rests on two primary elements—grasses and rocks—whose ubiquitous presence makes them part of our shared visual experience. These elements are never static; they embody natural cycles of growth, decay, and regeneration. Grasses captivate me through their forms and rhythms, creating a meditative repetition that flows through the artwork. Stones and rocks, by contrast, symbolise the quiet tension between solidity and dissolution—the movement between whole and fragment as they weather into sand or slip into water.
In this interplay of the ephemeral and the enduring, I find the counterpoise that lends the landscape its quiet drama. These works offer a dialogue between states of being, exploring the tension between order and disorder, and the fragile yet unyielding processes of transformation.
Panta Rhei 2023-25, oils and tempera on canvas, 18 panels each 100 x 100 cm (installation simulation)
“Panta Rhei” (“everything flows”) speaks to the constant movement and change that shape our existence. Through swaying grasses and passages of dark and light, the work evokes a world in continual transition—where nothing is fixed, and everything is always becoming.
The 18 individual panels depict grasses - some sharp, others soft, fading into a misty blur - creating a mysterious space that hints at half-remembered moments. I am drawn to grasses because their widespread presence makes them a part of our shared visual experience. So often overlooked, they exist at the edges of attention: ordinary, common, and almost invisible. In these works, I want to slow that glance and hold space for their subtle beauty.
As with much of my practice, I seek to reframe the everyday, revealing richness and presence within what is most easily passed by.
Zephyr (2025), oil and tempera on linen 100 x 200cm
My daily walks are framed by fields of feral grasses and weeds stretching from one side, where the trees edge the riverbank, to the other side, reaching the slopes of the ranges. In some seasons, the dew on the tall weeping stalks will glitter in the rising sun, while the setting evening sun will catch the tips of motionless grasses turning the fields bronze. At other times the grasses are short, either frostbitten or drought thirsty
The paintings are personal, remembered encounters in the landscape and an attempt to highlight the tension between human transiency and the resilience of the natural environment.
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along the margins 2025-26, oils on paper 56x76cm each
The grasses and weeds in this series of black-and-white works on paper are found in almost any habitat. They are survivors, thriving in manicured lawns, rocky hillsides, deep woodlands, or semi-arid plains. Often, they are the first to sprout in a new ecosystem—and the last to endure in an old one.
In this interplay between the ephemeral and the enduring, I find a fragile balance that lends the collection its subtle drama. There is healing in small moments, if we choose to pay attention: to a human gesture, a written verse, the shift of light, or the turn of the seasons. The whispers of beauty surround us, even when they take the form of thorny thistles or plain stones strewn across a parched landscape.
As with much of my practice, I seek to reframe the everyday, revealing richness and presence within what is most easily passed by.
Impact three 2026, oil and tempera on linen 100 x 200cm
A series of work explores the convergence of forces that shape a place’s singular character. The works navigate the space between fluidity and solidity, absence and substance—moving through desert, rock, and eroded remnants toward the ethereal states of dust, mist, and smoke. These forms emerge through shifting tensions between order and disorder.
The collection inhabits the nexus between the immeasurable age of the natural world and the transience of human perception. While rooted in the physical world—where stone remains stone—these works invite engagement with dimensions of experience that exist beyond the material forms they depict.
