Maya Aton: Lover's Eye

The exhibition comprises twenty- five diversely framed eye drawings, alluding to 18th-century eye miniatures, or Lovers' Eyes, usually painted with watercolors on ivory or parchment. Decorated with gems, these miniatures depicted the eye of a beloved person or spouse, and were worn as bracelets, pins, pendants, or ornate rings. 

The meanings embodied by the Lover's Eye explore the question of anonymity, shifting between the desire for exposure and the demand to preserve intimacy. In the past, Lovers' Eyes allowed wearers to keep their loved ones close to their heart without risking the exposure of their relationship, as the miniature would keep the eyes' identity secret. Addressing these issues, Aton used social networks to approach twenty- five people in Israel and in China, requesting that they send her a photograph of the eyes of their loved ones (spouse, children, parents, or friends), which she then drew with pencil on paper. 

Underlying the Lover's Eye is a fetishistic idea that associates desire with its substitutes. Aton's work explores this idea in personal and collective-cultural contexts. In the modern era, when the representation of reality itself seems uncertain, the fetishistic pattern gains in significance, since the fetishistic experience stems from an inability to represent desire directly; instead, it offers fantastic, artificial substitutes.