Kfar Aza

A series of eight paintings created for the duo exhibition Walking in the Fields, curated by Tamar Lamdan and Carmit Shine ("Two Curators"). The artists Chen Chefetz and Yuval Buchshtab wish to preserve the familiar landscape, the fields, the homes and the meanings that are enveloped within them. They explore their relationship to the field. Both Chefetz and Buchshtab walked in the fields, wandering around the surroundings, the former documenting and photographing, the latter gathering and collecting raw materials from nature.

​

For this exhibition Chefetz created a new body of work, paintings based on photographs he took in Kibbutz Kfar Aza after October 7th. These works depict the homes with the intention of perpetuating their beauty. He documented destruction and devastation in his photographs yet paints the houses whole and intact. This action embodies hope and a wish to return to these homes, after healing and rehabilitating, with a sense of well-being, security, peace and hope.

​

The name of the exhibition is derived from Nathan Alterman's ballad from 1934, "The Third Mother" and from the novel "He Walked Through the Fields" by Moshe Shamir. Alterman’s ballad, "My son is tall and quiet… He’s walking in the fields. He will soon be here. And he holds in his heart a lead bullet.” Three mothers sing a song of longing, fear and hope for their lost sons. The ballad that Alterman wrote is a Israeli classic of bereavement and remembrance. Shamir tells the story of the Palmach generation, the love story of Mika and Uri, a new immigrant from Poland and a native of the kibbutz, one of the most important works from the establishment of Israel.

In this exhibition Chen Chefetz memorizes his good friend Yahav Winner, who was born and raised in Kfar Aza and dedicated his life’s work of cinematography to his life there. Yahav was murdered in his home on October 7, 2023.