The Lighthouse is Dark Between Flashes: A Solo Exhibition of Work by Liora Kaplan

“The Lighthouse is Dark Between Flashes” is the first solo exhibition in the United States for Tel Aviv-Yafo based artist Liora Kaplan. Through the process of unearthing found ceramic vessels from her home region in Israel and combining them with new elements made from materials including wood, leather, metal, glass, and stone, Kaplan crafts towering sculptures that function as signals for the creative forces that connect us to nature, to each other and to our shared histories. Standing as pillars for Kaplan’s foundational influences in art, craft, philosophy, and music, her works become beacons that guide the viewer into her blended visions of retro-futurist construction and otherworldly contraption.  

The ideas for this body of work first emerged from a vase that the artist inherited from her father, who was an archeology enthusiast. Initially Kaplan thought that the object had a more archaic origin, but she would ultimately discover that it was not an artifact from a period long ago but was in fact an example of mid-20th century Israeli pottery. Upon further investigation, Kaplan would also discover that her father was an owner of a ceramic factory in the 1960s. This familial connection to ceramic production would eventually lead her to develop a personal and intellectual affinity for the shapes, textures, and history that informed such objects. Kaplan’s practice has now become devoted to the physical presence of the ceramic objects and the desire to transform them into talismans with transportive powers. Her work conveys a simultaneous sense of a journey to an ancient temple and a trip toward an unknown future landscape flourishing with new visionary architectonic forms.