Dreams, hesitation, curiosity, bright skin, youthful vigor, freshness, impersonation, self-control, tempting, innocence, happiness, pink undershirt-bras and plastic watches, flamboyant gowns, dead-seriousness and mischievous looks, despair and grandeur, are adolescence signals fiercely captured by Dalit Proter in her Little-Women portrait series.

Proter directs her daughter and friends, dressed in their Bat-Mitzvah gowns, in a variety of poses in a dark room with a carpet, in extreme lighting, to tell a story. The girls, individually and in groups, portray themselves trapped between two realms: childish and mature. Contrary to Rembrandt who chooses to illuminate the facial expressions while casting shadows on the rest, Proter excels at describing the conflict by focusing the projector on the frilled details in their extravagant dresses, leaving their naïve childish looks in the dark, thus creating a brilliant contrast between the excessive-overloaded femininity and the childish-expressive spontaneity. Proter manifests a profound grasp of the spirit of the girls facing her and transfers it to the canvas in moving virtuosity, controlling their expressions and postures encapsulating the crises and hope, as if foreseeing the future. The climax of her insight is visible in the mother-daughter dance painting where happiness, love and mother-girl/woman attachment are visible alongside the difficulty, anxiety, lack of control and looming natural separation.

The technique helps Proter tell the story. Oil paint enables the layering of the scene to accurately convey the fabric-creases, hair and stare. The sizeable figures expose their personality in posture, expression and selection of clothes, are spread all over the canvas, leaving no doubt about their heroic status. The paintings, even though formally figurative and realistic, are not accurate renderings of the original. Proter creates manipulations because she does not wish to copy but rather convey. She therefore redesigns the composition and reality, confidently controlling colors, lightening and darkening the face to crystallise and sharpen her feelings and the drama occurring on the canvas.

In real-life, the metamorphosis into femininity lasts for years, but in this series it seems that the girls undergo the change as we watch the painting in some accelerated growth as portrayed by Maimonides: “Twelve years old and one day…they are mature for all obligations”.

Closing: 11.11.13