FEATURES DAVID GERSTEIN

David
Gerstein
in Singapore

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FEATURES
It is difficult to think of another artist like
David Gerstein whose work in the recent
years has gained such prominence in the
local and international art scene. Everyday
in Singapore, thousands of commuters
on their way to work and play, travel
pass the iconic 19-meter sculpture in the
courtyard of One Raffles Quay. Momento,
the commissioned project that took two
years to complete and consists of a top
figure that is mobile and is reflective of
the multi-cultural Singaporean work ethic
comprising of people climbing the ladder
to success.
Regularly exhibited at distinguished
galleries all around the world, Bruno Art
Group has teamed up with Sunjin Galleries
to present Gerstein’s first solo show in
Singapore. Gerstein’s rich painting style;
the secular, flat, mundane images, simple
and glowing in their colors; his relating
to a society accustomed to seeing reality
through the television frame and which has
forgotten the simple pleasures of sand and
sea and riding a bicycle with one’s hair
blowing in the wind - all these encourage
us to ascribe his cut-outs to a late Israeli-
style pseudo Pop Art genre, designation by
genre and, not a fundamental-ideology.
The Israeli artist seeks to expand the
limits of the two-dimensional paintings
into three-dimensional sculptures. In his
choice of subject matter he wishes to break
down the existing barriers between the
work of art and its audience, by creating
enchanted and simple straight forward
images, which render sometimes intimate,
dream-like, naïve scenes and another times
38 // CONFABULATION
a cinematic, large scale, choreographed
reality.
Gerstein creates universal colorful and
layered images of still-life compositions,
urban landscapes and human activity, witch
always retain local and autobiographical
elements. His versatile body of works
consist of indoors wall-sculptures formed
as multi-layered cutouts, outdoor works,
sculptures, paintings, prints, drawings, and
designed objects including jewelry, which
can be found in Museums and galleries,
indoor and outdoor public as well as
artifacts and design shops in Israel and
around the world.
Born in Jerusalem in the early forties,
Gerstein grew up without toys. Together
with his twin brother, he had to devise
them from anything that came to hand.
To invent a world for himself by cutting
people and cars out of cardboard and
painting windows, wheels and doors onto
them, exactly like the thin toys made out
of tin (which years later were declared
illegal). Naturally, the Gerstein twins,
bubbling with relentless creativity, were
quickly considered highly gifted wonder
children.
Until the late eighties - when the large
body of his works called “cut-outs”
appeared, along with the process of
reproducing them in series of up to 150
signed and numbered copies, hand-painted
in industrial paints with some freedom in
variation. In his cut-outs - even though
most of them are fashioned in three layers
- something can still be found of the two-
DAVID GERSTEIN
For me art is something
simple and basic, like bread
and water and air. I have
heard about artists’ creative
torments, but I feel that I
create naturally, like a fruit
growing on a tree. I also think
of my works as fruit that the
tree has sprouted. I don’t have
to invent anything or rack my
brain on how to process a
grandiose idea: things simply
grow by themselves. They flow
when I’m driving, talking, in
the morning before I get out
of bed. Then I come to the
studio and work, and perhaps
cultivate my fruit: A piece of
fruit on which nature bestows
enticing color and shape, so
that birds will come and feed
on it and disperse its seeds.
In other words, the tempting
color and shape have function
and reason.
- David Gerstein
MARCH 2010 // 39
FEATURES MARC QUINN

dimensionality of the cut and painted cars. The improved technique gave rise to
Gerstein went through different expressive strong characteristic graphic bravado,
phases, yet in all of them he brought with stylistic gestures of strong figuration,
together the biographical with the local. classical elements of drawing and

Over the years his image reservoir grew
to include trees, butterflies and birds, and
his painting technique improved until it
Marc Quinn:
traditional painting compositions. With
these came a great release of color and
a switch to shiny, sensual colors that
celebrate life and its fullness, with their

A Profile
reached the formulation of handwriting, television-like flickering and their lack of
line and coloring which are uniquely his guilt and conflict. The respective shadow,
own. His images were treated again and which forms when the cutouts hang against
again, his funny figures internalized their the wall, is also taken into account as
slight stammer, their innocent absurdity part of Gerstein’s poetic duplication and
and their kindness, until they became more echoing effect.
Text: Elisabeth Chairil
and more graphic, automatic, spontaneous,
immediate, schematic, direct, with no David Gerstein one-man show runs from
double-lining; Merely a smiling gaze. 15th April to 6th May at Sunjin Galleries
at 43 Jalan Merah Saga, #03-62 Workloft
Before the metal cutouts with their @ Chipbee, Singapore 278115. For more
industrial-like process of production, information, please contact the gallery
Gerstein created works in painted at + 65 6738 2317 or email sales@
woodcuts. He painted the first of these sunjingalleries.com.sg. //
objects in the exact same manner as his
canvases - with conventional oil paints.
However, the transition to another medium
and material called for relevant paints
and painting techniques: super-lacquer,
stencils, tapes, airbrushes, etc. He tried
to liberate the “statues” cut in wood from
the flatness of the plywood. In order to
achieve an expressive, tangible effect
he covered the image’s surface with a
mixture of glue, sand and paint, and added
acrylic paint on top of the resulting rough
texture. However, it seems that even this
did not satisfy him. His quest for a suitable
personal language led him to metal,
forcing him to give up acrylic paint and
adopt industrial paint, since acrylic does
not take to metal.

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