Shimon Okshteyn: Grater, 2000

“What makes Okshteyn special is to be able to take traditional means and shape an enormous change in scale: the pencil asked to do heavy carrying. And it works, the image becomes icon, its impact profound.”  ___ J. Bowyer Bell, New York

“This is a new kind of Pop Art. Engaging, shocking and baffling. Okshteyn’s purpose is to focus the world around him through an intense engagement with these objects and let nothing distract him in their contemplation. He is after all pursuing an headlong, relentless and probably impossible task, but in this battle to represent, to illuminate this past, this history, his being undistracted is a gift to us all.” ___Robert Sandelson, London