ARTEXPRESS Interviews 2020 - Eli Narev 
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ELI NAREV: My name is Eli Narev, and I studied visual arts at Sydney Grammar in New South Wales. 
My body of work is an exploration through art history of how women have been portrayed, and really focusing on the voyeuristic nature of a lot of artists, namely drawing inspiration from Edgar Degas, Vermeer, as well as more modern artists like Brian Dunlop, an Australian artist. 
I was really interested in confronting the audience with how we've all grown comfortable in looking at women and in art in ways that certainly in real life wouldn't be appropriate. 
The body of work is three main sculptures at the front. The three of those represent art history. So we have some version of Degas' the woman in the bath, where she was originally very emaciated and I decided to give her more of a voluptuous form, to sort of turn that on its head. 
The woman in the bed is inspired by Rodin's Danae. I was interested in capturing the feeling of watching someone sleep, and how we perceive that as beautiful, when in fact that's actually quite a frightening prospect. 
And then finally, the seated woman combing her hair is inspired by the pastels by Degas. I know that Degas was a very interesting man when it came to women, and I think he was a very interesting person to choose when talking about the treatment of women in art history. 
I then took a more post-modern approach with the hanging sculptures. I decided to reflect the observation that the viewer is making on the piece within the piece itself. So we have the original woman looking out the window at the pieces themselves. And then just as an extra nod, we've got the male character up above looking down at that very woman, just adding an extra meta level to it. 
And then finally, I made some 2D works. I made a print and a drawing to recontextualize some of the more classical compositions, like sleeping and combing your hair to a more modern setting, like writing in a diary and drinking tea. 
So throughout the process, I got to play with some really interesting media. Initially, I was just using clay, and that's what I was going to hand in. And then I started to experiment with casting. We started producing all of my models in plaster. And then I made the decision to actually get one of my sculptures, the woman in the bath, bronze casted, and that was an incredible experience. We got to go to a casting studio and see how that process is done. 
I also got to experiment with aquatint. And I didn't even think that was going to be included in my body of work, but I had so much fun with it and it turned out pretty nice. And I was so glad I got to include that, because it was such an interesting process and so different for me as a sculptor. 
We're often told that art is incredibly subjective, but for me, I didn't really understand that until I put myself out there. And although when I was producing work that was so different from the people around me-- I went to an all boys school. The female form wasn't very accessible there. 
Doing this body of work and seeing it pay off really taught me to have confidence in myself and my taste and my eye and my skills. I am so proud of how far I've come, and I feel really-- I feel really confident to approach the world the way I want to approach it. 
I think after completing my body of work, I felt this sort of postpartum sadness as I left it. And I've learnt-- I've become dependent on an art as a form of release. And I think as I leave school and as I address the world, art is going to be something I need to keep up and allow myself to put my energy into. Otherwise, I'll be all over the place. 
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