What is bliss? Anyone who walks into the newest exhibition at Ticho House may discover that through the lens of femininity, bliss is something we might begin to consider unachievable – or perhaps it’s something imperfect, realized only in fleeting moments. Spanning decades and artistic approaches, the works in the exhibition Bliss spark a refreshing intergenerational dialogue about female identity.
Set in Jerusalem’s historic Ticho House, Bliss draws together works from contemporary artists Ayelet Carmi and Meirav Heiman, with a curated selection of figure drawings by venerated artist of the 20th century Anna Ticho. This curatorial approach of pairing contemporary artists with Ticho’s historical works has become a signature of Ticho House under curator Timna Seligman’s direction, fostering bridges between Ticho’s legacy and contemporary art that feel intentional and organic.
Carmi and Heiman’s performance-cum-video-cum-sculpture installations present abstract narratives that are a poignant contrast to Ticho’s realistic portraits. But put together, the works share a strong, symbolic, and often archetypal focus on womanhood.
Theirs is a femininity with strong foundations, but its present status is unclear – with stories that oscillate from human to mythical, with a fluidity that makes them timeless, historical, contemporary, and sometimes urgent. This uncertainty has a raw and authentic quality; it begs for questions – which is precisely what makes this show so compelling.
ENTERING THE art museum, my first encounter is with a striking paper sculpture by Carmi. Hanging from the ceiling, Zahara Wing (2025) is a taste of Carmi’s signature creations – a large and meticulously crafted wing made from plastic, wood, silver leaf, and oil paint.
The painterly feathers and tangible bones give the sculpture a natural quality, but its scale is human-like. The image immediately strikes you as something immortal – maybe this is the wing of a phoenix or a god.
Against the museum’s historical setting, the wing feels like an artifact from a bygone moment in time. Yet, as it sways subtly back and forth, I have the sense that its owner has recently disappeared or fled, leaving this empty vessel behind. Perhaps the wing was a tool to achieve freedom, but there’s an enormous weight to it, too – a hint that liberation comes with its own demands.
Moving deeper into the exhibition, I carry this vision with me as I enter the next gallery room. The space opens with another Carmi sculpture – this time, a gorgeous display of realistic, flowing eucalyptus tree branches.
The tree itself is a symbol of transformation, especially in Israel, where it has become so central to the landscape during the 20th and 21st centuries. Hinting at a theme of identity, similar to Carmi’s Zahara Wing, the eucalyptus is a motif we’ll see again in Carmi and Heiman’s video works.
The rest of the room presents a curated selection of Anna Ticho’s figure drawings – which is a real treat if you appreciate skillful linework. Known for her realistic style and depictions of Jerusalem and its surroundings, one of Ticho’s most prominent subjects includes portraits of Jerusalemites. Her husband ran an optical clinic from their home, where he served a diverse group of patients, so Ticho had a chance to intimately encounter the city’s residents.
I gaze at a group of female figure drawings, mostly created between the 1940s-’60s, during the State of Israel’s nascent stages. The works in this room are loosely rendered sketches in ink or charcoal, which offer a taste of the artist’s style. Thanks to the confidence of her hand, even Ticho’s quick sketches are embedded with a depth that reminds us that every woman is a world of her own.
In these drawings, Ticho captures a natural femininity. Sometimes her subjects are gentle, such as her study of a calm young girl; or her sensitive, full-bodied, standing, assured nudes, such as Nude Looking Up (1960s).
Other times, these women capture a strong, independent, and pensive nature that penetrates, evident in Portrait of a Woman (late 1940s). This display reflects an intimacy, even an obsession, with humans that draws the viewer into their world.
THESE HISTORICAL portraits ground me in a specific moment of Jerusalem’s past. But as I move to the next room, I start to encounter a very different version of femininity – one that seems to exist outside of time altogether.
The first of two video works on display in the exhibition, Bliss (2025) is a 10-minute, two-channel video work that features a performance-like sequence with women of all ages. The scene (which is a gorgeous aesthetic feat) starts with the group running away from an obscure catastrophe as they quickly go through a deserted setting, until they arrive at a dilapidated shelter.
As they arrive at the shelter, the group forms a sculptural human column, which, because of the context, seems like a form of survival. The perfect column is embodied with nature – but it is, of course, absurd and unnatural in its essence.
Reflecting both the sculptural and painterly qualities of Carmi and the fantastic photographic concepts of Heiman, Bliss is a perfect progression of the collaborative oeuvre of this artistic duo, who began working together in 2013. Similar to their 2018 work Israel Trail Procession, we’re transported to an almost apocalyptic time, where human beings interact with contraptions that may or may not be helpful.
As the video progresses, viewers encounter rich symbolism through performative action and visual elements. The women are seen working, for example, taking care of the plants that are such an intrinsic part of this structure. They’re also feeding one another, supporting each other physically, and are found weaving or putting together tools.
Among various fruits linked to Israeli identity, such as pomegranate or dates, eucalyptus appears again, integrated into the building material of the column. In this context, I couldn’t help but think about why the eucalyptus was brought to Israel to begin with. The tree’s year-round ability to absorb a significant amount of water made it a natural solution for drying up swampy areas in the land.
Despite living in a cement structure, there’s an antiquated feeling to this scene. The women wear simple costumes in a neutral color palette – beiges, greens, whites, and blacks – and it’s not easy to tell what century they’re from.
It could be the past, future, or present. But although it has this timeless element, it’s clear that the concept of time is relevant. As we watch the video, the change of weather represents the passing of seasons, which, to me, strongly alludes to the generations of women connected in the piece.
ALTHOUGH THE title, Bliss, leads us to anticipate the arrival of some kind of utopia, for me that wasn’t an obvious takeaway. Instead, I thought about different versions of femininity presented, which, it turns out, aren’t that simple to identify with.
Sure, these women are strong, but aren’t they tired? Is this the kind of independence they wanted, or was it forced onto them? Sometimes they seem relaxed and content – and here, their body is literally put on a pedestal – but they never escape carrying the load of this column on their own.
Moving toward the final gallery, I sat down for a viewing of Carmi and Heiman’s second video installation, Zahara (2021). The work reimagines the story of Zahara Levitov, a young Israeli pilot who was killed in a plane crash in 1948 during a civilian mission.
Opening with a scene in the Valley of the Cross, which is where Levitov’s plane crashed, an aerial view zooms into a performance representing Levitov’s death. Here, we see Carmi and Heiman’s version of Zahara – young and weak, yet with a powerful visage. She wears a large, colorful wing (which I realized is the original version of Carmi’s replica at the start of the exhibition), and spins toward the ground in an artistic recreation of Levitov’s death.
In this version, however, Zahara doesn’t die – or at least, she comes back to life. Lying on the ground, she’s visited by an elderly woman, whom the artists describe as being modeled after Ruth Dayan (a public figure in Zionism who, in contrast to Levitov, lived until old age). This woman mends Zahara’s wing, lifts her, and accompanies her as they walk through a modern-day, busy Jerusalem.
The two are clearly displaced, but I’m struck by the immense respect I have for these characters. Their anachronistic appearance doesn’t just create visual but also narrative juxtaposition – it turns the women into otherworldly creatures.
The elderly woman could be a goddess or an older version of Zahara visiting from an alternate reality. And the video gives Levitov’s memory new meaning – literally resurrecting a historical figure, it almost provides her with the life she never had.
There’s a strong dialogue between Zahara and Bliss. Aesthetically, I appreciated seeing this older work from Carmi and Heiman because there’s a strong and cohesive evolution in their visual language. Similar to what you see in Bliss, here nature-driven aesthetics are elevated with dream-like elements to achieve a mythical atmosphere.
There’s also a strong presence of female archetypes: mothers, huntresses, nurturers, and even wise mystics. In both videos, these archetypes are reinvented.
Still, two strong and perhaps uncomfortable points remain thanks to their femininity. First, the weight these women carry figuratively and physically. In Bliss, it’s the effort of maintaining the column, while in Zahara, her wing, once a tool for flight and freedom, becomes a burden she needs help to carry. Second, although the stories no doubt represent powerful, independent femininity, one wonders if the women can truly escape their constraints.
The struggle between strength, femininity, stress, and responsibility that the women in these works displayed deeply resonated, and I think the performance element of these was part of that experience. It was clear that the actors in Carmi and Heiman’s videos aren’t just playing another character but are invested in their own transformations throughout the performance.
FINISHING THE exhibition with a viewing of the rest of Ticho’s works, I meet detailed portraits of women from the 1950s – an Arab mother, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, and an elderly lady are among them. This display features women with more maternal, wise qualities; and compared to the drawings first encountered, their features are more detailed.
In this culminating moment, it feels very special to see how Ticho’s realistic works and Carmi and Heiman’s mythology ones illuminate each other with different ways of representing female figures.
Ticho’s grounded approach complements the imaginative stories evoked by Bliss and Zahara. Together, the artists create a conversation across time – one where the everyday lives of 1950s Jerusalem women find echo in timeless archetypal journeys.
The eucalyptus that appears throughout – in sculpture, in Bliss’s architecture, in the Israeli landscape itself – becomes a symbol of this transformation: foreign yet rooted, practical yet beautiful.
Empowering, but not in a cliché way
Walking away from Bliss, I felt empowered in an unexpected way. I’ll admit, when I first learned of the show, I worried that I’d encounter feminist art with overused themes – the kind that try to break apart societal constructs or reject binary definitions of gender (valid and important as those approaches are). But knowing Timna Seligman’s curatorial eye, I suspected it would be anything but cliché, and I was right.
Rather than dismantling ideas about femininity and community, this exhibition dove deeper into them – asking what they still mean to us today and suggesting that some of these patterns remain profoundly relevant.
I highly recommend this exhibition, and I look forward to where Ayelet Carmi and Meirav Heiman’s collaboration takes them in the future. Their harmonious collaboration, strong narratives, and unique video aesthetic definitely deserve kudos.