Wait for Me, 2020 - 2021 — NILI FEFERBERG ARTIST

Nili creates unusual, ambiguous, playful, solid, layered cast mineral sculptures that seemingly relate to everyday objects as a method of challenging and questioning our pre-perception of what we conceive as familiar.

The body of works in the series Wait For Me are concerned with the philosophical - existential exploration of the entangled relationships between humans and objects, artists and art objects, emphasising on the material’s subjective voice.

Through the title, I Am Not, the sculptures assert the importance of understanding materiality as agents rather than merely as representative, or a reflection of the cultural world.

Centralising the material’s attributes offers a space to rethink the relationship between material’s ontological meanings in relation to human self, in terms of sharing subjectivity such as experience, feelings, time and memory which are embodied in the sculptures’ weight, gestures and layers.

Image:

I Am Not A Sponge Cake III, 2021 — 17 x 13 x 13 cm

Medium: Solid cast minerals and stains

The Voice-Self
The Voice-Self is a concept I have developed to raise the awareness of humans’ relationship to objects, and humans’ desire to share their experiences with not only human but also with seemingly inanimate objects.

It is an active force that when it comes into action, it makes things happen, it activates art objects’ feelings. These feelings can be experienced by the viewer.

The Voice-Self acts as a transformative agent consisting of the experiences of the body, the skin and the mind that an artist goes through, internally and/or externally, along with the artist’s urge to share his/her experiences and emotions through action. These actions result in the embedment of the Voice-Self onto the surface of an art object.

I Am Not A Vanilla Ice Cream, 2020 — 22.5 x 12 x 14.5 cm

I Am Not A Thing, 2020 — 20 x 20 x 10 cm

I Am Not A Sarcophagus, 2020-2021 — 28.5 x 11 x 7 cm

Medium: Solid cast minerals and stains

SkinBody

SkinBody is a concept that I have been developing since 2020, it aims to string together the material ontology and the human self.

Different to traditional craft where glazes cover the clay body similar to a paint on a canvas, I am interested in diminishing the boundaries between the skin and the body, the glaze and clay, to create one material that is -

A skin and a body

A skin that is a body

A SkinBody

A skin that is a matter

A skin that matters

A skin that has a physical presence and weight in space

A skin that is not perfect, it is cracked, folded or separated

A skin that feels pain but also pleasure

A skin that is you and me

From top left

I Am Not A Victorian Bishop, 2021 — 10 x 8 x 11.5 cm

I Am Not An Orange Bishop, 2020 — 12 x 5.5 x 7 cm

I Am Not A Chocolate Bishop, 2020 — 9 x 8.5 x 8.5 cm

I Am Not A Beggar Bishop, 2021 — 12.5 x 9 x 4 cm

I Am Not A Frog Bishop, 2020 — 9 x 8.5 x 8.5 cm

I Am Not A Bending Bishop, 2021 — 7 x 4 x 9.5 cm

Medium: Solid cast minerals and stains

Eat Me if You Dare/Mutual Becoming

The importance of using minerals in this body of work lies in the fact that humans are also composed of minerals, either through consuming food or through our natural body compound. This fact, I suggest, offers a space to re-think the act of making beyond poiesis which centralises the maker. It opens up a space for mutual becoming, giving a voice not only to the maker but equally to the object.

Furthermore, minerals are part of the geology of earth which could be seen as a parallel to the geology of our body in the form of physical experience, memories and of time, in that sense this is where both of them meet.

From top left

I Am Not Seriously A White Chocolate Cake, 2020-2021 — 26 x 9.5 x 14 cm

I Am Not A Black And Orange Cream, 2021 — 25 x 7 x 8.5 cm

I Am Not A Muffin, 2020 — 8 x 9 x 10 cm

I Am Not A Teatime Sandwich, 2020 — 12 x 6 x 8.5 cm

I Am Not A Double Layer Meringue, 2021 — 38 x 9.5 x 8.5 cm

I Am Not A Sponge Cake II, 2020 — 10 x 12.5 x 15 Cm

Medium: Solid cast minerals and stains

Temporary Skin Mould

To create my works I reverse the order of the materials qualities that are used in traditional casting.

In contrast to traditional casting, I use recycled cardboards as moulds, they are fragile, unstable, organic and temporary. However, the born mineral sculptures are solid and heavy, they embed and reveal every surface’s nuance, which are not, when fired, manipulated or refined by me. They are individuals and are not made to be repeated.

This unique casting approach enables chance and a loss of control to play an important role in the quasi freedom of the movement of the born sculptures.

Medium: Cardboard and minerals

Cracks, Layers and De Subjectivising pain

Does pain relate to human experience only, or also to inorganic objects?

“Wittgenstein attempted to free the feeling from their tie to the body-mind dichotomy theories, he suggests that the pain is ‘THIS THING’...pain can be ‘objectively observed’....he also conceives pain as autonomous in relation to organic or inorganic things, it does not matter who feels, human or object”.

This series of work has followed extensive research into the different properties of minerals, resulting in dozens of different formulas that I use in my cast sculptures. Each work is made of layers and combines one or more of the formulas to achieve a separation or a smooth flow between the layers. The wide variety within the work reflects the depth of my experiments and explores the materials expressive language and voice.

I Am Not A Strawberry Mousse On Top Of A Cheese Cake, 2020 — 20 x 11 x 9 cm

I Am Not A Sponge Cake, 2020 — 9 x 18 x 16 cm

I Am Not A White Cheese Cake , 2020 — 21 x 8.5 x 8.5 cm

Medium: Solid cast minerals and stains