‘”Shabbat Is descending’ was the anxious statement every Friday afternoon exclaimed by mother. The younger children, too young to understand the importance of Shabbat, simply went about their activities, while older siblings responded with a menage (house cleaning). That same call triggered daydreaming for me. I saw Shabbat as a magical being with multiple heads, some female and some male. I conjured up an amalgam of Shabbat-related paraphenalia — earthly candles and white bread, and more abstract tales such as the story of creation. The word DESCENDING both excited and scared me. I imagined that any moment all these things and people would come down through the opening in the center of the house and might actually crash, but nothing ever went wrong.”

– Raphael Bouganim

Size: 40″ x 36″, Medium: oil on canvas