Silverman Gallery is very pleased to present Yuval Pudik’s first solo exhibition, “A Predator’s Mohawk” comprised of thirteen drawings on paper. Here the artist’s interest in manhood merges the meticulousness of Ernst Haeckel with the likes of Joel-Peter Witkin and Claude Cahun who similarly produced provoking self-portraits often using costumes or masks as a way of exploring their own identity.
The title of this exhibition comes from the thrill of the hunt and the hunt in this instance, as celebration. For Pudik the A Predator’s Mohawk is a barbarian, an animal who is depicted through the artist’s self-portraiture in the midst of transformation. Haute Couture embodies the romance, expense, and excess that is fashion and has since its initial conception been a symbol of privilege. In work such as Found Them To Be False, a delicate pencil composition of leather, ruffles and botany linger between gracefully poised and on the verge of conquest. The figure and its many parts threaten eachother equally and yet the subject is the initiator of the feud.
Charmed by the often-fetishized American muscle car A Predator’s Mohawk merges El Camino cars into the dress and body of each figure. This vehicle, which is considered half car and half truck, is Pudik’s Silver and his subject a modern day lone ranger.
Yuval Pudik was born in 1978 in Israel. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles and Israel
