Psalm 151

by Michael Gedalyovich (details views), is a large scale painting (The entire painting is 230x140 cm, oil on plywood). The painting originally is relating to two maps of Jerusalem from the 19th century. one from Austria and one is Turkish, both had their interests in the city. so the maps functioned as a "scientific"' "accurate' depiction but also as a narrative like painting, each empire depicted in the map it's own interests. the artist used both maps simultaneously while creating over the painted space many small scenarios that creates by themselves new stories, new connections, new layers of interpretation, some of them are taken from Sufi paintings, comic books, erotic drawing, war albums etc...

Michael Gedalyovich, Psalm 151 (detail) oil on plywood, 230x140 cm

Michael Gedalyovich, Psalm 151 (detail) oil on plywood, 230x140 cm

Jerusalem as an object of aspiration, of utopia, the Jerusalem as described in Psalms, is recreated here as a fantastic, imaginative, fictional zone filled with fantastic creatures, Heroes and futuristic yet naïve like spacecrafts, some kind of animated kingdom. The book of Psalm in the Old Testamony holds 150 chapters, the painting represent the 151 one# #Although for many years scholars believed that Psalm 151 might have been an original Greek composition and that “there is no evidence that Psalm 151 ever existed in Hebrew”, now from the Dead Sea scrolls that is consedered that this psalm did in fact exist in Hebrew and was a part of the psalter used by the Qumran community.