In new paintings, Tchiprout presents moments of intimacy and community, staging hand-made dolls in a world that is self-referential and protected. Her dolls are modelled after herself and her peers, female protagonists from Yiddish literature, and historical figures including the Jewish dancer Els Keezer. In painting figures that are activated by their expressions and likenesses, though lifeless in their slack physique, Tchiprout muddies the boundary between imaginary and real, animate and inanimate. However, despite her depiction of gentle touches, sisterhood, care, and communion – experiences drawn from her Jewish upbringing – Tchiprout’s dolls are not entirely immune to our challenging reality. Cast in deeply psychological spaces, drawing on emotions of longing or exclusion, Tchiprout’s paintings address what the artist views as an intrinsically Jewish tradition of finding joy within pain, and catharsis through connection and memory.
Having established her career in printmaking, Tchiprout paints the different textures and materials of her dolls – modelling clay, human hair, vintage fabric and wood – with direct and graphic brushstrokes. She builds warm-toned layers of oil paint with the same logic as a monotype. In I know where I stand with the skylarks, Tchiprout’s palette is at its most vibrant, with vert olives, bismuth and lemon yellows casting a bilious glow reminiscent of early 20th century German Expressionism. Influenced by the intensity of artists including Kathë Kollowitz and Paula Modersohn-Becker, Tchiprout’s thick, decisive line-making and bold, non-naturalistic colour invite a tension within the dreamy, quiet realm that her subjects inhabit. Though the painting’s title, a reference to English poet Christina Rossetti’s 1864 poem Twice, has associations with longing and romance, the artist counterbalances the intimacy and comfort of the scene with foreboding veils of dark brushstrokes. Tchiprout’s central figure casts a nervous glance sideways, wary of an unseen disturbance, or even the presence of the viewer. The comfortable stillness between the sitters is threatened, implying an awareness of the fragility of their world