Today I Feel 2023

Today I Feel / Yochi Shrem
Curator: Dana Gillerman 

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The series "Today I Feel" uses criticism and humor to explore how contemporary culture, particularly social media and advanced apps, dictate the concept of "the right look", and in doing so, further widens the intergenerational gap between young and relevant women and those who are not, as well as the divide between women who shape the new language and tools provided by the internet for the young and beautiful, and those who find themselves on the sidelines.

The exhibition includes ten collages of the artist's face, printed as 70x60 cm
posters. Shrem uses embroidery to attach to her face the facial parts of young
women – mouth, eyebrows, and eyes – taken from ads promoting aesthetic
treatments and Instagram. By doing so, she creates extreme, grotesque facial expressions that completely distort her age and identity. Through sewing those parts onto her face, she makes a direct reference to plastic surgeries associated with the beauty culture, highlighting the social pressure to maintain a youthful appearance (even when you already appear young), which is especially intensified regarding women of her age, who often feel transparent and irrelevant in contemporary culture.

By incorporating two mirrors into the exhibition space with detached facial parts, Shrem offers the audience to experience those same sensations of incongruity and disruption.

This exhibition’s point of origin is her previous work that was exhibited in 2021 at the Open University's Gallery in Ra'anana, titled "The Beauty Myth." Shrem embroidered onto her own face eyebrows, eyes, and lips, referencing the work of Gina Beavers, a feminist artist who is one of a long line of feminist artists with whom Shrem playfully engaged in critical dialogue through embroidery.

Photographs :Reli Avrahami