Contemporary Figurative Painting — Behind the Obvious
Abraham Aronovitch is a contemporary figurative painter whose work explores the porosity between the self and its image. This page features the series Behind the Obvious, a body of work centered on the bathroom mirror, transformed here into a space of metaphysical tension and intimate confrontation.
The mirror is no longer a reflection, but a threshold where the image of the self imposes its own stopping point.
A Contemporary Figurative Painting Series Centered on the Mirror — Fragmentation of Reflection
Abraham Aronovitch’s contemporary figurative painting does not aim for a faithful reproduction of reality but rather for a tension between what is seen, perceived, and understood. Within the Behind the Obvious corpus, the bathroom mirror—one of the most familiar motifs of everyday life—becomes a central device. Far from the vanity of classical portraiture, it introduces a gap between physical presence and mental construction.
Aronovitch’s works capture that moment of desynchronization where the body no longer fully coincides with its reflection. Through a precise palette and an economy of gesture, the painting questions the dissolution of certainty: the mirror is no longer a tool for recognition but a "critical zone"—a threshold where identity slips away and reconstructs itself.
The figures, often rendered in blue, appear as mental silhouettes inhabited by states of waiting, confusion, desire, or doubt. The painting thus acts as a space of suspension, where the gaze rests without ever resolving the enigma.
A Pictorial Exploration of the Gaze and Identity
The bathroom mirror as pictorial space
Within this research, the mirror is never a mere object. In Abraham Aronovitch’s work, it structures the composition, fragments the space, and redistributes roles between the body, the reflection, and what emerges within the reflected image. At times, the mirror opens onto an autonomous scene; at others, it opposes two non-meeting presences; and at others still, it becomes an opaque surface, a screen, or a threshold.
This displacement transforms the bathroom—a space of the intimate and the everyday—into a symbolic realm. The painting captures moments of silent confrontation, where the individual looks at themselves as much as they elude themselves.
Behind the Obvious: the series as a continuous thread
The entire body of work presented on this site is centered on the Behind the Obvious series, conceived as a global research cycle rather than a mere succession of independent canvases. Each painting serves as a necessary variation on the same core themes: contemporary identity, the inner gaze, and the tension between appearance and mental reality. Without imposing a single interpretation, Abraham Aronovitch’s series favors open-ended situations where the viewer is invited to project their own experience of doubt, connection, or distance.
A contemporary figuration without an imposed narrative
In contrast to narrative or illustrative painting, Abraham Aronovitch’s figuration refuses resolution. The scenes do not tell a complete story; they fix a state. Time appears suspended, relationships remain ambiguous, and gestures unfinished. This absence of conclusion is integral to the approach: it places the viewer in an active position, facing images that question without ever providing answers.