Everyday at The Artist's Magazine we receive a cascade of mail. Readers compliment and sometimes complain; artists send queries or postcards announcing shows; publishers send review copies of books; societies and galleries send catalogues, etc. The other day, however, I received a disc of images and an accompanying artist's statement that were extraordinary.

Dovrat Amsily-Barak describes her work as "staged photographs of scenes that are déja vu fantasies." Actually a mother, she portrays one in her photographs; the settings evoke the austerity of institutions like clinics, orphanages, and convents; the light is precise and penetrating, reminiscent of Vermeer’s and Chardin’s.

The light is natural light, what Dovrat Amsily-Barak describes as "of the universe only." She says, "I am shedding light on the figure as an individual and illuminating the sacredness of its doings."


Photographs by Amsily-Barak;
used by permission