Added Jun 20, 2015
Light unto the nations
Jerusalem Post; Jerusalem; Sep 21, 2001; GIL GOLDFINE
[Mandy Sand]: mixed-media on panel (Artists Pavilion, Tel Aviv)
AT THE center of an exhibition of paintings and drawings in a variety of media by Mandy Sand (b. Romania, 1932) is Visions, a nine- part wall installation whose images fluctuate between grotesque baroque decoration and fantastic realism, much of it evoking Gustave Moreau, the 19th century French symbolist.
In extravagantly painted panels sporting titles such as The Sicilian Harlequin and The Big Circus, Sand creates complex compositions that include a plethora of academically rendered mythological figures, nude models, cutout dolls depicting painters and poets, found objects, toy animals and bits of wooden furniture. Although much of Sand's work borders on narrative kitsch, one must give him credit for determination and sometimes-adequate figurative rendering. His entire enterprise is an uncompromising collection of psychedelic colors describing characters and stage props in a theater of the absurd