Fine Structure Constant: Sarah Nina Meridor's breathtaking new exhibition

• Published date: 30 September 2021
• Author: BARRY DAVIS
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The equilibrium element also lies at the core of a fascinating and evocative exhibition, with the curious title of Fine Structure Constant, currently hanging on the walls of the Agrippas 12 collective gallery.

The 18 works, created by Sarah Nina Meridor, feed off the biblical saga of Jacob wrestling with an angel. The tussle, we are told, ebbed and flowed through the night, and that pivoting act is portrayed in the oil paintings, along with various other references to a slew of fluctuating states.

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At first glance, the display looks a little like a comic book spread. The works are packed pretty compactly, creating a sort of storyboard frame sequence. That is the primary drawback of the limited cooperative display space. Then again, after all, there is a storyline to the biblical source so, perhaps, the absence of a more generous wall surface may actually contribute to the continuum perception.

Meridor presents the protagonists in all sorts of poses, dynamics and, even, basic quantitative presence. There are figurative scenes, and pictures that tend more to the abstract, dreamy, side. Some have detailed facial features, others have none at all. In some paintings the protagonists are naked, and there are fully clothed figures, and some covered to the point that their corporeal attributes are indistinguishable.

All the above, and more, are grist to Meridor's storytelling endeavor, and even the absence of information seems to infer some subtext or other. There is also deft usage of light and shadow interplay, as well as chromic spectrum dovetailing which, largely, uses the stark contrast between one figure in red – representing the visceral animus, life itself – and one in white, inferring purity.

That is part of the general plan as the multi-pronged line of artistic attack serves as a vehicle for examining accepted wisdom and conventions – which tend to spawn preconceptions – regarding good and evil. "Light is meaningless without the dark," says Meridor, adding some thoughts about our socially acceptable value system in general. "When good reaches a certain point it generates stagnation. Stagnation is a way of life. That is a sort of death. It is worse than darkness which, at least, offers the promise of something else."

There is plenty going on in Fine Structure Constant. There are the base dynamics of the wrestling meet...