Explosion, Laserchrome, 30x40 in., 2002 (left)

Shirley Wegner’s art explores borderlines and the concepts that constitute and destroy them. Living in New York, she investigates the subtle cultural mechanisms that shape the imagery of her birthplace – of the Israeli nation and territory – only to confront them with her personal memories. Situated on the outside, she excavates both her own subjective memory and the collective memory of her culture; she does so by bringing together her personal myths and collective Israeli myths, by creating layers of penetration which allow her to then assemble them into a new image. This new image is an ambiguous one, contradictory at times. […].

Shirley Wegner’s work is concerned with borderlines in many ways – real political borderlines that separate nations and territories, as well as conceptual borderlines. By treading a thin line between images and concepts in her work, she transforms these borderlines into flexible spaces, whose exclusivity can be deconstructed to the point of a basic confrontation between two different elements. [….]. In her work she constantly confronts images and concepts that represent cultural and ideological entities, and replaces them with a more subjective series of meanings.
Excerpts from: “Thoughts on Ambiguity” by Melanie Puff, 2006.

Ruins, Laserchrome, 30 x 40 in., 2003

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Cactus Field (Sabra), Laserchrome, 30x40 in., 2003-4