Orit Raff was born in 1970 in Jerusalem, Israel. She attended Bezalel Academy
for Arts and Design in Jerusalem, received a BFA (cum laude) from the School
of Visual Arts in New York and participated in the Independent Study Program
of the Whitney Museum of American Art between 1998-1999. In 2003 she completed
an MFA at Bard College. Orit Raff creates spare photographs, installations
and video works which suggest intimacy and the private self. Her earliest
mature work, the White series, were made primarily in the private areas
of the home. Raff turned neutral objects such as a toilet bowl, bathroom drain,
a bed, a bar of soap and a mirror into cool meditations on hygienic whiteness
intensified by introducing clues to the body that occupies these spaces. This
theme of marks of absence is continued in her installation Mobius Strip,
which combines images of indentations left on carpet and other sites in a
recently vacated apartment which are imbedded into relief structures suggesting
the floor plan. The installation, Inside Drawing, combines images from
elementary school with sculptural elements to evoke memories of our earliest
experiences outside the home- and learning in a public place. A key element
in this project was a series of old wooden desk tops with marks and inscriptions
from generations of children's' scribbles.
The spare ness of Raff's imagery links her work aesthetically with minimalism, but her references to common everyday life and objects also suggest a pop sensibility. In the lates 1990s created two separate but related groups of works- the freezers, a series of nine 40 x 50" "in your face" interiors of her antiquated freezer evoke the Northern Romantic tradition of Caspar David Friedrich's dramatic icy landscapes. A series of video images depict water in states of movement- in a steam room, Jacuzzi and swimming pool filter- the organic movement of the precipitation evoking associations with body functions.
Her project "Insatiable" with the subject of bakeries as metaphor for life and death cycles has been shown in Israel, New York and Rochester and is accompanied by an artists' book. Raff's work has been exhibited widely in Europe, Israel and the United States. She currently lives in Tel Aviv with her husband and daughter.
The spare ness of Raff's imagery links her work aesthetically with minimalism, but her references to common everyday life and objects also suggest a pop sensibility. In the lates 1990s created two separate but related groups of works- the freezers, a series of nine 40 x 50" "in your face" interiors of her antiquated freezer evoke the Northern Romantic tradition of Caspar David Friedrich's dramatic icy landscapes. A series of video images depict water in states of movement- in a steam room, Jacuzzi and swimming pool filter- the organic movement of the precipitation evoking associations with body functions.
Her project "Insatiable" with the subject of bakeries as metaphor for life and death cycles has been shown in Israel, New York and Rochester and is accompanied by an artists' book. Raff's work has been exhibited widely in Europe, Israel and the United States. She currently lives in Tel Aviv with her husband and daughter.
Insatiable 2001-04 [view images]
The Pot Calling the Kettle Black 2001-2002 [view images]
Freezers 2000 [view images]
White Series 1997-1999 [view images]
Inside Drawing 1997-1999 [view images]