In 2022 The Jerusalem Print Workshop invited Shai Yehezkelli to an artist residency to create a series of prints. The work process took over a year. During this time, the political earthquake of the judicial overhaul in Israel began, and the intense drama and the impending disaster naturally infiltrated into the works, consciously and subconsciously.
Yehezkelli, a Jerusalem native who has been living and working in Tel Aviv for over a decade, says that the geographical location of the workshop had a profound impact on the formation of the signs and symbols in the artworks. “On every trip there, I would get off at the train station adjacent to the Shechem Gate (Damascus Gate), and a significant part of the composition of the images was done on the terrace of the print workshop overlooking the walls of the Old City and the Temple Mount.
However, I did not seek to create a narrow context for reading the works (the bright red “March” print referring to the Flag March, the homage to Ze’ev Raban’s iconic Zionist tourism poster, pre-statehood and so on – they all convey some duality in my view), but of course, after October 7th, when the prints had already been completed, the works required a more immediate, searing and direct interpretation – the terror of the future became present, and the symbolic house in flames was no longer symbolic.
Left to right: Shai Yehezkelli, Welcome to Palestine, 2024. Ze’ev Raban, Come to Palestine, 1929
The new series is currently on view at Jerusalem Print Workshop’s group exhibition “Waking Dream” through May 23rd.
