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At first sight Aya Ben-Ron's Blister resembles a multidimensional greeting card blown up into a wall object.
Both the radial symmetry encircling the flower images and the cosmic association of the circles reminiscent of a planet and its moons, evoke a sense of harmony between the elements that comprise the work. The viewer is drawn into this aesthetic and appealing mold, only to encounter images which are difficult to look at. The rich colour pallet, the abundance of details, the overt symmetry, and the enclosed and sharp shapes draw the focus of the viewer's eye directly into the harshness of the images making it impossible to escape.
This dichotomy between the living, the beautiful, and the seductive on the one hand, and the destructive and traumatic on the other, is translated into graphic forms, practically a format of a human image. Blister is designed like a dried flower, all set for a microscope slide. The petals have been personified and transformed into figures of women, men and babies, which in turnare reshaped to fit the pattern of the petal and are, thus, confined to the petal's geometric layout.
The use of the human figure originates from medical illustrations. This work rests on the 16th century *Fugitive Sheets, which generated three-dimensional compositions that enabled the study of the internal body. After undergoing computer processing, the image in Ben-Ron's work is printed, cut by hand, then arranged and superimposed in layers within the geometric structure of a flower. The successive layers of images form a swelling, which is bursting out of the flat plane of the wall, metaphorically representing that of a blister.
The composition of elements and the three-dimensional aspect of Blister induce two illusory directions of motion. On the one hand, movement is directed towards the viewer, emerging outward from the wall. On the other hand, movement is circular resulting from the cyclic logic of the flowers, within which the images extend outwards from the center point, similar to the hands of a clock. These illusory motions express the dichotomy in Ben-Ron's work.
Despite the medallion-like contour of the flowers, the structure of the work is unconfined and the motion towards the viewer is unrestrained. Thus, according to Ben-Ron's metaphorical language, it is probable that the swelling, namely the sickness, will spread involuntarily in the direction of the viewer. Seemingly, nothing can stop it from spreading other than the conscious awareness of the viewer that this is, after all, just a work of art. At the same time, although there is a constant circular movement resulting from the numerous associations between the figures within each of the medallions, the work conveys a sense of harmony and even astonishment at the internal pattern of the bubble. Metaphorically speaking, the work evokes an admiration for the internal and structural logic of both sickness and bacteria.
Like the Indian mandala, the work's circular composition enforces a powerful center point that compels the viewer to focus and penetrate the image, as if engaged in a meditative act. The image translates into a graphical layout of celestial forms. The colorfulness of the figures and the situations depicted bring to mind tarot cards insinuating, in non scientific terms, a forecast of the future; whereas, the reliable forecast is the pseudo-medical one, the prognosis of the disease. The entire structure - the petals and the kaleidoscope of colors - take the viewer back to the psychedelic posters of the 1970s, deliberately suggesting both a sense of acceptance and an awareness of aesthetics through the filters of hallucinogenic drugs. The emphasis on the decorative aspect, the confinement of the human figure and human actions within a given framework, and the countless reminders of time evoke a parallelism with a gilded book of hours. Books in which the activities of life replace those of agriculture and the seasons become a metaphor for life. Thus, instead of leafing through pages, the viewer can pass through seasonal cycles, life and death.
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