Artwork: Staircase vase (black)
Artist: Sarit Cohen
Medium: porcelain slip cast
Dimensions: 61 x 27 x 15cm
Acquisition: An acquisition of the ACT Legislative Assembly Art Advisory Committee, 2024
Asset no: OLA002851
About the Work
Cohen cites among the influences on her work the 20th century art movement of art deco and in particular Bauhaus architecture. There are over 4,000 buildings in Tel Aviv from the 1930s built in a unique form of the International Style, commonly known as Bauhaus, by German Jewish architects who fled to what is now Israel from Germany and elsewhere after the rise to power of the Nazis. Tel Aviv has the largest number of buildings in the Bauhaus/International Style of any city in the world. Cohen references the pared back, functional and elegant vocabulary of this modern architecture in this vessel.
About the Artist
Sarit Cohen is a contemporary ceramic artist creating minimal art that reflects the emotions within. Homage, memorial, and commemoration are common themes in her work. Cohen, although living in Australia for 30 years, comes from a Turkish and Indian background and has lived at one time in Israel. She has this multicultural background to draw upon.
Fascinated by the universal concepts of form, mass, proportion, rhythm and structure in everyday life, her work reflects the beauty of life and its fundamental simplicity. She aims to capture an essence that celebrates and refers to post-industrial everyday objects. Her perspective is influenced by a nuanced understanding and knowledge of the Bauhaus and the Decorative Arts movements of the early 20th century and just as important, was spending her formative years growing up in Israel. The use of minimal palette, reduced colour scheme, and simple shapes offer a sense of calm and serenity. This invites viewers to pause, to linger, reflect and feel the resonance. The artist describes her play with the form of the object as a pleasure that creates the building blocks of ideas for her work.