Irit Tamari (b. 1976, Kibbutz Tzora, Israel) holds her first solo show in Beijing "Hao jiu bu jian le" (Chinese for "Long time no see") a series of photographs taken in Israel as a reflection of her four years in Beijing.

In 2007 Tamari and her husband embarked on an adventure and moved to China. Leaving behind her blooming artistic career as a young Israeli artist, she went - armed with a camera and a pair of scissors. Photographing became an essential way of life for her; photography helped her with the process of comprehending all the experiences of her new life as a foreigner in a new country, whilst functioning as a way to create a visual diary communicable to everyone, despite the cultural and language barriers.

For Tamari the photographs were merely the starting point. After her return to Israel, she was consumed by thoughts of when she would return to Beijing. During this period she selected a limited number of pictures from the thousands she had photographed and treated them as initial two-dimensional raw materials. She then started cutting, allowing her hands to re-build small models of imaginary worlds which only exist in another dimension, creating a fictional reality she could escape to, hide within, a reality that provided her with the feeling of being back in Beijing. The final stage in her artistic process was the re-photographing of her models on a large scale (using a 4*5 professional camera), creating a new documented 'scene'; a hybrid of reality and fantasy; image and representation.

Tamari’s art offers an alternate reading of photographic techniques. It applies a unique approach to stretching the borders of the two-dimensionality enforced by the medium and shatters its accepted concepts. Her works reach a different, enigmatic place that exists beyond photography, beyond the clear image and beyond the understanding of things as they are. She undermines order and creates a visual world where, according to her, “the possibilities to destroy, rule, organize, repair, and ultimately to re-create” all exist.

Alongside the photographs, Tamari exhibits in "Hao jiu bu jian le" a complementary in-situ wall installation, which contains an object made out of cut fragments from images of her exhibited photographs combined with images of the Jia Li gallery's space taken by Daphne Mallet in a different period of time. The installation continues Tamari's artistic process and transforms the photographic language not only into another dimension or space, but also into another time: the present. Tamari is back in Beijing.

Irit Tamari (b. 1976, Kibbutz Tzora) lives and works in Tel Aviv and works primarily in photography, installation, and collage. She received an M.F.A. from Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, and a B.Ed. from HaMidrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College. Her work has been exhibited in Israel and abroad at Nada, New York; CIGE, Beijing, NY art gallery, Beijing; Fresh Paint 5 Art Fair, Tel Aviv; Tel Hai Photography Museum; Reading Power Station, Tel Aviv; and Sommer Gallery, Tel Aviv.

About the Exhibition

Duration: June 9 - July 8, 2012 | Opening party: 16:00-20:00

Venue: Jiali Gallery, 4 Beijixiang hutong, Dongcheng, Beijing

Opening time: Thursday, Friday, Saturday 14:00-19:00 and by appointment

Gallery Owner: Daphné Mallet

Curators: Danna Applerot-Mattas, Adi Artsi

Courtesy of the artist? and Jiali Gallery, for further information please visit www.jialigallery.com.