BY SHAYNA SKARF
TIME OUT NEW YORK
JUNE 28, 2001
Peretz stands at a greater remove, literally and figuratively, from her subjects, concentrating as she does on pure aesthetic depiction. Her formal panoramas capture the cultivated hillsides around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the rooftops of Jaffa, without a trace of religious, cultural or spiritual sentiment. In her serene diptych On the Road to Jerusalem, she makes use of a limited color range while keeping her brush strokes free and impressionistic. She layers arid colors with apalette knife to build textures, shaping hazy plots into geometric patterns. The result is a soft, painterly replication of topography. Likewise, the eye traverses the luminous Gabel Mukaver to Zur Bacher unfettered by symbolism, distinguishing misty horizons, meandering footpaths and the outlines of terraced Jerusalem-stone homes.
Peretz’s muted landscapes, which possess a kind of ascetic objectivity, require some patience; Safdie’s stunning compositions are immediately arresting. Perhaps narcissism plays a part in the seductiveness of Safdie’s figures over what Leon Wjeseltier aptly describes as Peretz’s “pure pictures of place.”
