Ody Saban

Q-T

16 Dec

Born in Istanbul to a Sephardic Jewish family, Ody Saban received a convent education until the age of 16 and was brought up beside the sea by her mother and stepfather, who greatly influenced Saban's artistic development. She was 15 when her father died and the shock of it is still with her today.

In 1969, she went to live on a Kibbutz in Israel. She completed a course in art education, but found she could not teach art to children in an academic manner. Furthermore, she didn't believe that art could be taught at all. She moved to Paris in 1977, organised two groups of self-taught female artists, and began exhibiting her own art. Although her work displays a tough and aggressive stream-of-consciousness outpouring, it is ultimately life affirming. Her rich, varied cultural upbringing and experiences seep into her work with Saban saying, "To me it seems that in myself, the woken dreams, spontaneous imagination, and semi-controlled hallucinations have developed rather than lessened with age. I continue to practice my childhood games almost constantly, and more intensely, but in a visual and interiorized manner."

The main themes in Saban's work are the sea and the erotic. Embracing or copulating couples are often the major compositional element and the space around them are characteristically filled with living objects that enact the fulfilment of their own desires and all is seemingly in a state of flux and renascence; flowers are eyes, cheeks are lakes, landscapes are bodies and sexual organs are plants.