S t e v e S A B E L L A
Having realized that Jerusalem, Sabella's city of birth no more exists, he started perceiving the harsh reality of living in 'exile'. After conceiving the project jerusalem in exile, Sabella explores through the use of the human body what he now refers to as 'exilic landscapes'. In an attempt to exit his reality, these landscapes were early signs of Sabella's distorted perception of life as in 2008 through fragmentations of images, he deconstructs his immediate monotonous surrounding him and reconstructs them to mirror the State of Mind of living in exile and alienation (in exile 2008). |
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2006 lambda print, dibond mounted on plexiglass 70 x 62 cm WATCH a 4 minute TV documentary (visual journey) on this work produced by IKONO-TV - click here |
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example of how prints look when printed & mounted |
REVIEWS |
Steve Sabella in Exile - Conversation with the Artist What do you mean when you refer to “exilic landscapes” in your Exit hand artwork? I like the expression very much and would like you to comment on it. "When I discovered my city of birth disappeared and went into exile, I was lost or entrapped in my immediate space – my city. I started perceiving the world in a very harsh way. I had no where to go and I was on the edge of total physical and mental collapse. I found myself walking on harsh foreign lands. My immediate space was shattered and I wanted to convey to the world the nature and form of the new harsh ground I am standing on. This ground or land was the land I was exiled to."
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Steve Sabella - The Journey of Artistic Interrogation and Introspection The result, Exit (2006), his series of images of hands, speaks for itself of the pain of a landscape of both geography and life afflicted in similar ways to Jerusalem itself, with the ravages of battles that extend beyond the symbolic battlefield of war. Exit was in many ways his attempt to give a visual form to the cumulative experiences of his life, and the result, which makes one cringe, is haunting. These hands were the landscape of his exile. |
Steve Sabella - I am from Jerusalem In 2007 Sabella left Jerusalem for further studies abroad. Before his departure, however, he prepared Exit, a disturbing photographic sequence of aged hands, gnarled and discoloured by time to which he refers as his ‘exilic landscapes.’ While for the first time, this artwork specifically makes use of the human body, it also intimates a yearning for re-connection, a release from mental exile. Perhaps it is ironic, or simply human, that he was to achieve this only once he entered the Diaspora, that is, after he physically left home. |
