TEL AVIV.- Osnat Ben Dov's photography exhibition is dedicated to her mother Nur,نور (light in Hebrew), following her death last year. The loss experienced by the artist is reflected in everyday objects from the mother's estate. Useless household objects that hold childhood memories are placed on a table. Behind them stands an empty wall that serves as a changing background, allowing for simultaneous absence and containment.

"I started listening to my mother's stuff while she was still alive," says the artist. "My mother, who in her old age became demented, gave objects the meanings of a magic fairy, in a world view that we would call childish, she brought them to life."

Ben Dov photographs are seemingly clean and simple compositions, in natural light and long exposure. An object, a plant, some insect are placed in the center of the frame. Usually on a table, sometimes on a tablecloth or napkin. The similarity between her photographs and still life paintings is striking. The themes are classic, momentary and ephemeral beauty in the processes of withering and death, and the imperative to live in the moment. Her photographs offer a new layout of the relationship between the human and the non-human. A flexible definition of the range of relations between man and object and an extension of the perception of animals to the plant and the inanimate as well, and not only due to the fact that photography by its nature enlivens the moment. The passage of time is recorded in light, as material that perpetuates a unique time sample, which cannot be replicated or reproduced. The light that penetrates the scene from the window reveals the lyricism within the routine. Its soft transformation, as if it instills stability and security and enfolds within it a homely and familial atmosphere. But the prolonged process of separation of the daughter from the mother is constantly seething from within, and the emerging light sharpens the feeling of stagnation of the eternal gaze. A ray of sunshine that penetrates the window in the winter morning cracks the sense of stability and makes the absolute deceptive and elusive. For a moment a cloud covers the sun and for a moment it strikes with its dazzling directness - and the light cast on the objects creates a delicate field of shadows that is present between everything and nothingness, between life and its demise. Osnat Ben Dov's dialogue with the Light is dedicated to her mother, to the loss of her memory that revived her belongings, and to her objects whose soul continues to be intertwined with the mother's soul and who bring her loss to life.

Osnat Ben Dov graduated from the Department of Photography at Hadassah College1994 , and studied art at HaMidrasha Faculty of the Arts 1991. She has exhibited in Paris, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. On October 7th, Osnat's solo exhibition was held at Kibbutz Be'eri's gallery. The gallery burned down and with it the exhibition. Thanks to good people who pitched in to help, the exhibition has been restored and is on display at the Janco-Dada Museum.