Negev 1986

Alexander Bogen made this painting, ‘Negev,’ with brushes and oil paints. The Negev desert appears as a series of strokes and daubs, as though hastily rendered en plein air. But this belies Bogen’s underlying concern with materiality. See how the yellow pigment dominates the canvas. The artist loaded his brush, dragging it across the surface to retain its thickness. The red sky is even denser; it almost seems to float above the scene, casting a harsh light upon the arid landscape. Patches of green and black are interspersed with strokes of white, suggestive of sparse vegetation struggling to survive in this environment. We know Bogen was deeply affected by the experience of conflict, having served as a partisan fighter during the Second World War. This history may well have influenced his vision of the Negev as a place of stark contrasts and elemental struggle. Looking closely at the painting, it's clear that Bogen employed his materials not merely to represent a place, but to evoke a profound sense of its spirit. He treats the paint almost sculpturally. This blurring of boundaries between painting and sculpture encourages us to reconsider the conventional categories of art history.