Noa Yekutieli

Noa Yekutieli B. 1989, USA, lives and works in Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. Engaging with various mediums including manual paper cutting, site-specific installation, sculpture, photography, and drawing I explore the notion of narrative formation. Through the technique of disassembly and assembly, I constantly constructs and deconstructs photo-imagery by transforming them into manual paper-cut work. By cutting through a singular opaque black paper I slowly reveal a full living image, focusing on the missing elements embodied within its narrative - the gaps, the void, the absence. This methodology allows me to dialectically explore the tension held within the material itself which ripples larger questions; the conflict between the notion of positive-negative, black-white, and right-wrong. Coming from a multicultural background, I draw from my personal experiences, often incorporating various inconsistent narratives that explore displacement and assimilation. Many of my installations contain recurring patterns of destruction, a longing for an unknown origin, and fractured notions of homeland. My works contain different decentralized points of tension that come together onto a single surface, like a tapestry that traditionally contains several narratives, but bears witness to a single phenomenon. The destruction imagery that often arises from the delicate paper-cut work tends to meet the massive physical ruins I collect, enabling me to juxtapose between our baggaged present and our delicate past. Mirroring the human desire for control, the paper cutting is a labor-induced effort that doesn't allow mistakes. It is an irreversible process that emphasizes the temporality of human nature and deconstruction embedded within it. The manual cutting paper technique is a metaphor for a perception of time that has passed, this laborious technique allows me to slow down and try to carefully understand the most minimal line of the image. While cutting, I have the opportunity to deeply reflect upon what I see around me and seek not only for what is seen but also what is absent and missing. In the process, I experiment with the boundaries of the paper, make connections, and test how much I can detract from it while it can continue to hold itself, by itself. Being present in the meditative process of manual paper-cutting I reveal how strong the absence of space really is. In the translation from the photograph to the intricate paper-cut work, I tend to copy every single detail, an action that does not leave out any piece of information, nor obscure it for the larger sake, in an attempt to state the careful awareness needed to responsibly document the passage of time.