Goro Rappoport
Mutations
etching
24 x 36 in.
My paramount concern as an artist is the juxtaposition of reality and illusion. My prints refer to my emigration experience, which tore me out of a familiar environment and deposited me into another one, where I did not seem to belong. For a long time I felt as though I was in Limbo. Everything around me seemed unreal, fictitious. The feeling of “not belonging” is an important element of my work. The hollow facades of the buildings or frightening surreal creatures, which are looming over the characters in my prints, are reminiscent of theatrical “flats,” where painted canvas is stretched over wooden frames. The “unreality” and theatricality of these elements signifies that the safe world of sturdy floors and perpendicular walls is lost forever for my lonely protagonists.
© Goro Rappoport