Sasha Okun > Critics

It is impossible for the observer to stop gazing at the manifestation of the creative force of the figurative images. The graphic accuracy, worthy of admiration, together with most impressive colorfulness, turn the images and their situations into an epic myth, and leave the observer astonished and amazed by their power.
Shlomo Har-Paz, Zman Mevaseret.
Empty Sex while holding to the remote control
Sasha Okun’s exhibition presents merely eight large paintings, paintings which grip the viewers, as if trapping them into their space. Okun is not interested to entertain, nor in making the viewing a pleasurable experience, he is seeking this time, it feels, to pass on an urgent message: namely, something relating to our body and, mainly to the soul it contains, is totally defective. Such assertive statements, without the space for breadth to facilitate irony, or the occasional release which creates aesthetic beauty, could easily succumb into simplicity and reduce the art into illustration; but not in Okun’s exhibition. His work troubles, has presence and relates in a most interesting way to the best in international figurative painting as much as to the Israeli one. Okun immigrated to Israel from St. Petersburg in 1979 and, in many aspects, he is a successful migration story. He has been teaching in Bezalel since 1986 and has held many one man shows and participated in many group exhibitions. Despite it all, he remains to a considerable extent, an artists’ artist. His painting is steeped in European traditions, those of the past and those of the present. Especially apparent are the parallels to the paintings of Lucian Freud and to no lesser extent, to these of Janie Savel, both British. Also here are direct influences of Goya’s grotesque works. Okun paints in oils on chipboard panel in a technique resembling frescoes. He is a direct exponent to the Italian mannerism traditions the likes of the “Long Necked Madonna” of Peremeginino, the later paintings of Pontormo and also the later Michelangelo, as in the Sistine Chapel and after. Okun’s images are reclining characters, who first appear as if painted in the desert, in a place governed by the void; barren land without growth, objects and any other life besides the images; space which it borders are the limits of the painting and infinity. These are ageing deformed images, ridiculous, void of any rational proportions. All are in their nakedness, and their nakedness is the least sexy or erotic imaginable. More than that, it is indicating intimacy or openness in expressing vulnerability, lack of meaning and poverty; it feels like the spirit of Chanoch Levine is hovering over the exhibition. Especially challenging are the paintings of the couples. Okun draws sexual scenes which could have been regarded as daring in any other painting, but here they merely serve to polarise the feeling of nothing, the emptiness that is the true subject of the exhibition. In one of the paintings is depicted a couple in a sexual act against the background of what appears to be a stage design resembling a red sky, on a layer which is something between a creased bed sheet and a desert; Okun is transmitting in it the depth of boredom, a total indifference of the two bodies; of the woman resting on her stomach and the man who is coming on her from behind. The gaze of the viewer, which is wandering in a quest for some sign of desire, is focusing finally on the object held in the woman’s hand: with a closer scrutiny, it turns out to be a television remote control; the control also explaining the forward gaze of the woman directed to the television set which is outside the picture. This remote control is reappearing in all the paintings of the couples. The television screen is the objective reality, the alternative here and now of these images, the huge vacuum which sex is making a faint effort to fill. In another painting is seen an elderly, naked man. His huge belly is bulging in front of him, standing spread legged in what appears to be a theatrical depiction of a brothel with red curtains and cubicles opening one to the other. Here, it appears that Okun is making a kind of a parody of the postures of haughty war lords; at the same moment in which the man is referring vainly and masterly to the people or the place in front of him, it turns out that also in his hand, as in the hand of the images indulging in empty sex, is a remote control. The remote control is a symbol for contact and illusory control in a reality which is always elsewhere.
By Smadar Shefi, "Ha'aretz"
Although I usually refrain from making any clear recommendations, this time I am going to act beyond my habits by saying that I highly recommend visiting "Artist's House" and seeing this amazing exhibition.
Yiftach Or'ad, Kol Ha'ir
These remarkable oils of a naked middle-aged couples in flagrante are at once moving and an object lesson in classical oil painting. They aren't about sex but about the survival of love - or the illusion of love... …these large, untitled oils on plywood panels are important as paintings, particularly in an Israeli context replete with conceptual banalities. …Everything about these oils looks right because of Okun's fine sense of composition. … The union of figurative and abstract elements appears effortless. There are two ways to visually enjoy these oils. First keep your distance and take in the whole panorama from a distance of two to three meters. Then stick your nose in the work and admire the various types of brushing, the thin overlays of pigment and the tricks of texture. Nothing is out of control.
Meir Ronnen, Jerusalem Post

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		It is impossible for the observer to stop gazing at the manifestation of the creative force of the figurative images. The graphic accuracy, worthy of admiration, together with most impressive colorfulness, turn the images and their situations into an epic myth, and leave the observer astonished and amazed by their power. Shlomo Har-Paz, Zman Mevaseret. Empty Sex while holding to the remote control Sasha Okun’s exhibition presents merely eight large paintings, paintings which grip the viewers, as if trapping them into their space. Okun is not interested to entertain, nor in making the viewing a pleasurable experience, he is seeking this time, it feels, to pass on an urgent message: namely, something relating to our body and, mainly to the soul it contains, is totally defective. Such assertive statements, without the space for breadth to facilitate irony, or the occasional release which creates aesthetic beauty, could easily succumb into simplicity and reduce the art into illustration; but not in Okun’s exhibition. His work troubles, has presence and relates in a most interesting way to the best in international figurative painting as much as to the Israeli one. Okun immigrated to Israel from St. Petersburg in 1979 and, in many aspects, he is a successful migration story. He has been teaching in Bezalel since 1986 and has held many one man shows and participated in many group exhibitions. Despite it all, he remains to a considerable extent, an artists’ artist. His painting is steeped in European traditions, those of the past and those of the present. Especially apparent are the parallels to the paintings of Lucian Freud and to no lesser extent, to these of Janie Savel, both British. Also here are direct influences of Goya’s grotesque works. Okun paints in oils on chipboard panel in a technique resembling frescoes. He is a direct exponent to the Italian mannerism traditions the likes of the “Long Necked Madonna” of Peremeginino, the later paintings of Pontormo and also the later Michelangelo, as in the Sistine Chapel and after. Okun’s images are reclining characters, who first appear as if painted in the desert, in a place governed by the void; barren land without growth, objects and any other life besides the images; space which it borders are the limits of the painting and infinity. These are ageing deformed images, ridiculous, void of any rational proportions. All are in their nakedness, and their nakedness is the least sexy or erotic imaginable. More than that, it is indicating intimacy or openness in expressing vulnerability, lack of meaning and poverty; it feels like the spirit of Chanoch Levine is hovering over the exhibition. Especially challenging are the paintings of the couples. Okun draws sexual scenes which could have been regarded as daring in any other painting, but here they merely serve to polarise the feeling of nothing, the emptiness that is the true subject of the exhibition. In one of the paintings is depicted a couple in a sexual act against the background of what appears to be a stage design resembling a red sky, on a layer which is something between a creased bed sheet and a desert; Okun is transmitting in it the depth of boredom, a total indifference of the two bodies; of the woman resting on her stomach and the man who is coming on her from behind. The gaze of the viewer, which is wandering in a quest for some sign of desire, is focusing finally on the object held in the woman’s hand: with a closer scrutiny, it turns out to be a television remote control; the control also explaining the forward gaze of the woman directed to the television set which is outside the picture. This remote control is reappearing in all the paintings of the couples. The television screen is the objective reality, the alternative here and now of these images, the huge vacuum which sex is making a faint effort to fill. In another painting is seen an elderly, naked man. His huge belly is bulging in front of him, standing spread legged in what appears to be a theatrical depiction of a brothel with red curtains and cubicles opening one to the other. Here, it appears that Okun is making a kind of a parody of the postures of haughty war lords; at the same moment in which the man is referring vainly and masterly to the people or the place in front of him, it turns out that also in his hand, as in the hand of the images indulging in empty sex, is a remote control. The remote control is a symbol for contact and illusory control in a reality which is always elsewhere. By Smadar Shefi, "Ha'aretz" Although I usually refrain from making any clear recommendations, this time I am going to act beyond my habits by saying that I highly recommend visiting "Artist's House" and seeing this amazing exhibition. Yiftach Or'ad, Kol Ha'ir These remarkable oils of a naked middle-aged couples in flagrante are at once moving and an object lesson in classical oil painting. They aren't about sex but about the survival of love - or the illusion of love... …these large, untitled oils on plywood panels are important as paintings, particularly in an Israeli context replete with conceptual banalities. …Everything about these oils looks right because of Okun's fine sense of composition. … The union of figurative and abstract elements appears effortless. There are two ways to visually enjoy these oils. First keep your distance and take in the whole panorama from a distance of two to three meters. Then stick your nose in the work and admire the various types of brushing, the thin overlays of pigment and the tricks of texture. Nothing is out of control. Meir Ronnen, Jerusalem Post 1982 \| 1985 \| 1986 \| 1988 \| 1989 \| 1990 \| 1991 \| 1992 \| 1993 \| 1994 \| 1998 \| 1999 \| 2006 \| 2008