Tal Mazliach: War Decorations

Tel Aviv Museum of Art marks one year to the events of 7 October,with an exhibition by Tal Mazliach, which centers on a new series of paintings titled "War Decorations 23–24." Using her familiar colorful, compact style and a world of symbolic, personal images, Mazliach depicts her harrowing experiences from 7 October, when she was besieged for over 20 hours at her home in kibbutz Kfar Aza – until she was rescued by the IDF Shaldag Unit.

       Tal Mazliach, War Decorations 15, 2024. Photo by Elad Sarig

The new series of paintings titled "War Decorations 23–24" at the center of this exhibition was created following the traumatic events Tal Mazliach experienced from 7 October 2023. Born on kibbutz Kfar Aza, Mazliach was raised and lived on the southern border and has been dealing for over 25 years with the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and with the shadow of the existential threat. On 7 October, when the sounds of sirens began and the WhatsApp groups were issuing incessant warnings, Mazliach hid in the safe room of her home, which also serves as her studio. Besieged for over 20 hours, while hearing everything that was going on outside, she was finally rescued and brought to safety by an IDF special Unit.

         Tal Mazliach, War Decorations 1, 2023. Photo by Elad Sarig

These harrowing events are at the core of the series, which developed in the weeks and months following that day, when Mazliach was evacuated and stayed with the Rom family in Kfar HaOranim and later in the community settlement Matan, in the southern Sharon region (also located on the border, opposite the Palestinian village Hableh), where her brother's family lives.

Displaced and in emotional turmoil, Mazliach decided to work again, putting her faith in the healing power of the act of painting. In the absence of her typical painting materials, with which she has been identified – oil paint and wood panels – led her to purchase the canvases and acrylic paints available in a local craft shop and to paint unusually on small canvases. Thus, she began forming, with her signature style, colorful and dense compositions, filling every inch of the canvas with what her eyes saw, and her mind cannot let go of.

            Tal Mazliach, War Decorations 2, 2023. Photo by Elad Sarig

A sense of constant restlessness imbues Mazliach’s complex and crowded paintings. She invites viewers to immerse themselves in her world of images and symbols. Her layered work is formed through a unique technique she developed: short, minute brushstrokes that create repetitive, flickering rhythms. In them, she embeds words and phrases that seem to serve as a code of the work for the viewer. The painting War Decorations 1, which opens the series, is like an intense capsule, containing Mazliach's current vocabulary and imagery: blue pistols and hands placed on a yellow-red-black background composed of the phrase "But I got out alive," repeated over and over again like a mantra. A closer look reveals the date "7 October." written vertically deep in the earth, which is depicted as two triangles dangling on their vertices. 

           Tal Mazliach, War Decorations 4, 2023. Photo by Elad Sarig

The androgynous figures in Mazliach's work are deeply rooted in her oeuvre and are present in the exhibition in almost all possible positions: lying on their back with a face mask, sitting cross-legged with hands behind the head in submission, or standing strong and defiant, pointing the middle finger in all directions. In their bodies and faces, the figures serve as Mazliach's omnipotent avatar of sorts. Their portrayal –skin plagued with spots and blurred gender – manifest deviation and otherness, a form of renouncing conventional ideals of beauty and "normality". Mazliach fuses all these elements into familiar yet enigmatic scenes, difficult to watch yet infinitely fascinating.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art
19.9.24 – 11.1.25 
Curator: Amit Shemma

All images courtesy the artist and Alon Segev Gallery, Tel Aviv