Life, 2024
Acrylic on canvas
38.2 × 51.2 in
When the mirror no longer returns an individual image but a collective presence, the family becomes the anchor and silent framework of the gaze.
In this work, Abraham Aronovitch places the family at the foundation of contemporary identity. The mirror—an element structuring the Behind the Obvious series—no longer returns a solitary image, but a plural presence, making the intimate group the ground from which the subject is formed. Each figure stands both for itself and in constant relation to the others, suggesting that the gaze can only situate itself through the prism of one’s surroundings.
The mirror’s dispositif does more than gather bodies; it articulates their distances and their bonds. Life presents the family less as a visible unit than as an invisible, enduring structure. It is a framework through which the individual learns to look at themselves, revealing that the image of the self is always, in negative, an image of those closest to us.