Offer Goldfarb in his studio Stark, postmodern, and highly intriguing, self-taught Israeli photographer, Offer Goldfarb creates a world of his own through the power of the lens. Goldfarb offers up spare yet symbolic imagery of strong contrasts: hard and soft, here and nowhere, consciousness and void. One of his preferred aesthetic tools is employing large expanses of muted tones to build a dramatic effect, a sort of sensorial deprivation that ends with a vibrant focal point. The urban landscape’s walls, pavement, stairs and buildings are the boundaries wherein dwells the spirit. Lone protagonists linger nearly beyond our sight, in stairwells, peering up close through cracks, or from afar. Displaying a preference for sandy beige and cool grays, offset by tiny areas of crimson or cobalt blue, the pictures are as much a nuanced study of color as an emotive tool. There is a gritty post-apocalyptic feeling to some of his urban works, as if the air had been sucked out of the atmosphere. However it is not destruction but a marked absence of humanity that is both startling and peaceful at once. “I regard photography as a mirror—reflecting my inner world,“ he explains. “Abstract, for me, is getting far from the thing itself, but always leaving a hint for life.” There is a spiritual quality to the works that deal with maintaining identity in a cold hard world. Goldfarb will also turn his minimalist principles towards nature and through his reduction of the human influence we are confronted by elegant, almost painterly images. Hints of nature are often coupled with concrete, glass, or steel.

 Goldfarb’s genius lies in empowering the audience and providing them with room to insert themselves into the work—for when the heart is given space, that is when it soars.

Besides being a working artist, Goldfarb teaches at an institute of visual arts outside of Tel Aviv. He has exhibited his photographs frequently in Israel, as well in Germany and the United States. Goldfarb lives and works in Israel.

www.offergoldfarb.com

www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Offer_Goldfarb.aspx