Zemach gallery, Tel Aviv  “From the honey and the sting” Opening Reception: Thursday, October 30, 2014 Curator: Ron Bartos Ilan Baruch’s current exhibition will feature new paintings depicting themes that are central to his artistic practice in recent years. The painter’s realistic language is impressive and appealing, committed to work that is rooted in a conflictual ground (the notion of a place, borders, settlements), archetypical identities (spiritual Judaism, earthly and exotic Arabness, femininity of fecundity and plenty) and juxtapositions and objects that carry symbolical meanings (prickly pear, pomegranate, knife, flag, prayer shawl). In this exhibition we also encounter cypress trees, prickly pear bushes and other subject matters that in addition to their origin in reality, are also fraught with symbolism. zcagallery.com