Nefilim 2006
The Nephilim
In the series The Nephilim*, de Lange observes a number of large buildings with a penetrating, sensitive, and critical view, which became a "visual a symbol of" a society of conspicuous consumption," greed, alienation and arrogance in Israel.
His paintings join the intense discourse about the non-naïve viewpoint of Israeli landscape art. In his paintings, the Akirov and Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv, or the Holyland Complex in Jerusalem, stand as an allegory to colossal giants. Their form and presence in the public space is similar to the threatening giants that trample and oppress the environment. Their builders worship a global Moloch. The dimensions of the paintings themselves, their colors and materials (diluted asphalt, lacquer, charcoal, and their yellow glare) join the fundamental statement regarding what they represent, in the urban architectural and social-political sense.
Like the messenger at the gate, de Lange warns and hints that the apocalyptical potential of destruction and collapse, simultaneously spiritual and physical, exists in giants, similar to the historic and mythological precedents (giants in the Bible, the fallen angel, Icarus and Daedalus, Goliath).
Prof. Haim Maor, May 2013
* The word "Nefilim" in Hebrew is a biblical term, which combines the meanings of giants, titanic. The original linguistic root, still recognized by contemporary Hebrew users, also includes the potential for collapse and shuttering.
Mont Fort
In the series Mont Fort ("strong mountain" in French), de Lange looks beyond the historical precedent from the year 1271, at the fortress found in the western Galilee. Its ruins are a testimony of the end of the Crusaders kingdom in the land of Israel. The site, located seventeen kilometers from the artist's home in Nahariya, attracted de Lange's attention and he visits it often, to photograph it and paint it. Like the structures in the series The Nephilim, it contains the architectural pomposity and the same existential experience of wresting control, theft, excessive lust and radical ideology that leads its builders and tenants to deteriorating and destruction.
Iron Dome
In the paintings of knights' helmets, painted on wallpaper with patterns that recall European ornamentation, de Lange finds the threatening and alienated presence of the buildings. The opening of the eyes resemble the apertures for weaponry, and the shapes of the knight's helmets resemble bunkers or fortresses. In the series of the hollow helmets there are decorative elements that are at the same time grotesque and brutal.