| Revital’s paintings of lazy lounging in domestic settings have a quiet, slow, lethargic, almost melancholic feel to them. Standing within a close range, the artist’s brushstroke becomes fully evident, playing with a sense of motion, emphasizing the creation of each plane made. Active, lively marks describe each and every part of the composition, yet the figures all have this grave and withdrawn nature to them. And although the artist’s color palette is quite bright, quite playful, and light-hearted, there is still something found within the figures that remains solemn. |  |
Revital’s paintings of lazy lounging in domestic settings have a quiet, slow, lethargic, almost melancholic feel to them. Standing within a close range, the artist’s brushstroke becomes fully evident, playing with a sense of motion, emphasizing the creation of each plane made. Active, lively marks describe each and every part of the composition, yet the figures all have this grave and withdrawn nature to them. And although the artist’s color palette is quite bright, quite playful, and light-hearted, there is still something found within the figures that remains solemn.
The figures in each case have their faces turned away from the viewer, aloofly avoiding meeting their gaze, they appear stuck within their thoughts, preoccupied with something troubling. In each portrait there is a reoccurring theme of the faces and heads of the figures being composed of a different color or scheme of colors than that of the rest of the figure’s body. Often in a slightly more abstract manner, contrary to the rest of the realistically rendered painting, the heads of the figures are purples or blues, for example in Did Not Berry His Hand or Portrait with Small Mellons. It conveys a sense of the person being disconnected in some way, most likely mentally or emotionally, from the space they’re in. In some pieces like Portrait with Small Mellons or Reality the figure’s faces seem to blend into the background and the lighting surrounding them. This effect gives the viewer the feeling that the figure is somehow dissolving and fading away from their present state, drifting in thoughts to some place else. The artist’s brush strokes, although very forceful in movement at the same time have a very light, airy feel. Not so much paint is applied, and the white of the canvas shows through, giving these images a barely there feeling. This reminder of the physicality and reality of the painting as an object in some ways gives the viewer the same feeling the figures are often depicted having; a hazy drift from reality, grounded in an obvious place, but taking their being from one place to another in thought.
