26.04.2024 - 25.06.2024

Women of Darkness, Women of Light
Aline Alagem

In her first exhibition at Kanya & Kage, Israeli Berlin-based painter Aline Alagem presents a series of paintings that celebrate light through bold feminine subjects. With its strong red palette and intense gazing female heroines, this exhibition offers both comfort and confrontation, ultimately suggesting a hopeful path amidst a reality of darkness.

Alagem’s glossy world of sensual, powerful women subjects is shifting into a visual frequency that demands a different kind of attention and commands reflection.

The personal connection Alagem shares with her subjects, notably her muse and sister, portrayed twice with her back turned, serves as a manifesto of resilience—a light that cannot be dimmed. This recurrent theme of enduring luminance, intertwined with pain and griefs potential for transformation, suggests that sorrow and loss can catalyze growth, akin to water and fire
generating new life.

Embedded in each painting, textual elements —“listen,” “speak,” “wait”—gain profound significance against the contemporary discourse on war and the autonomy over women’s bodies. These paintings, by centering the female gaze, invert the traditional narrative, positioning the observer as the observed.

This series also signifies a first for Alagem, incorporating Israeli icons such as Daliah Lavi, ( b.1942, Israeli actress/ singer with German roots and career), and and Gila Almagor, (b. 1939 famous Israeli actress “the face of drama”).

This homage to Alagem’s cultural heritage and ‘sisters’ intertwines with a poignant lament for the innocence of the past, now confronting the present for answers. With a bold palette that spans vividness to minimalism, Alagem’s new paintings celebrate feminine beauty and strength as beacons of hope and renewal. In a context marred by loss and skepticism, these figures stand as flames of enduring power, illuminating a possible path forward, by insisting to be seen and heard.

OPENING
25.04.2024
19:00 to 22:00
The opening is public.

EXHIBITION
Duration:
26.04.2024 – 25.06.2024

VISITING

by appointment

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