Roey Heifetz’ most recent work consists of drawings of oversized figures that seem to float in front of the white paper background. The artist often provides them with generic titles such as “The Secretary”, “The Librarian” or “The Teacher” and subjects them to an intense process of deconstruction. The act of drawing is important to him rather than the story of the characters, which always remains untold. The artist enters into an intense dialogue with his works, which the enigmatic fascination to his figures in the field of conflict between figuration and abstraction, uniformity and precise details.
The key work of his current exhibition is The Teacher’s Nap (2011), Heifetz’ first horizontally oriented drawing. It shows a long, stretched-out figure – the teacher – lying down at a moment of relaxation and thus loss of control. Heifetz’ work consciously creates ambivalence and leaves the viewer uncertain whether the recumbent woman is asleep or already showing the first signs of physical deterioration in death. He creates a floating state between alertness and sleep, life and death – and so hits on that cathartic moment when the process of losing control and separation from reality begins. On the upper floor of the gallery space the visitor is then truly overwhelmed by a remarkable installation comprising oversized drawings arranged as a kind of walk-in ‘cabinet’. The figures seem simultaneously strong and vulnerable, radiating as much glamour as decadence: here, they enter into an intense relation with the viewer, so involving him/her in the associative interplay of the characters that Heifetz represents.