In a series of figurative paintings, Dalit Proter challenges the boundaries of the human ego with wisdom, humor and compassion.

The apron – salient in the “housewife” painting which sealed Dalit Proter’s previous exhibition – became a Transitional Object in this exhibition, as Shai, Proter’s youngest son wraps himself in it as he masquerades.
The playfulness, mischievousness, jubilance and freedom from child gender thinking, stimulated Proter to start the series dissecting the relationship between parent and children.

As always, Proter paints her family to convey her attitude towards humans, their communication and interrelationships. Ofer, Sahar, Tal Shai and Proter herself become models symbolizing a world-view.

Like the apron, the boxing gloves, gun, boxer underwear, swing, nightcap, chain, beret, belly-dancer costume and old tub metamorphose into a story about carefree impulsive childhood, painful adolescence, charged political reality and hence ambivalent parenthood fluctuating between authority and support.
Proter gives her models the freedom to choose their props and stages the scene. Most characters gaze at the spectator, hence at Proter as she paints. The gaze, full of trust and naiveté and at the same time defying and wild attests to an intimate bond, unabashed and harmonious between the artist and her subjects.

The climax of this relationship lies in two Pieta-style works where a center-frame tin-tub holds at one time a son rocked by his mother and at another, the mother as helpless victim guarded by her son. This role-reversal enables Proter to be wisely and attentively accurate at depicting the gamut of complex human relationships in quotidian life in the modern era.

Closing: 31.07.16