Touch Grass 2025
Solo exhibition at BOOA, Jerusalem
Curation: Carmi Dror
Exhibition photography: Carmi Dror, Alma Ben-David & Lior Harel
“In an abandoned space of a printing house, a place where once stories and entire worlds were printed onto pages, Boaz Parnas brings to life other creatures – characters from the worlds of animation and pop culture. In this exhibition, the cute and clean characters are pulled out of their fantasy worlds and transferred into a physical, cluttered, and chaotic reality.
The exhibition’s title, Touch Grass, refers to a contemporary internet expression that means a call to leave the virtual world and reconnect with physical reality. The phrase, often used in a critical context, is directed at those who seem “lost” in the digital space – those who spend too many hours in front of a screen, disconnected from the world outside. In the case of the exhibition, this call is reversed: the encounter with "the grass" is not a return to a natural and clean place, but an entry into a dirty and complex physical reality, where even the material itself is processed, plastic, and sometimes corrupted.
At first glance, visitors encounter monochromatic two-dimensional works, minimalist sketches that distill the characters into a primary and almost pale presence. However, moving to the next space reveals a brightly lit and colourful installation, where the characters are reintroduced to their virtual world through the use of light and vibrant colours.
A central element of the exhibition is the incorporation of ready-made elements from the space itself. Parnas makes use of materials such as plexiglass panels, wood planks, cardboard, and other industrial items that were part of the location, turning them into an integral part of the works. This creates a sense of ongoing dialogue between the history of the space, analog aesthetics, and the digital world from which the characters emerged.
The viewpoint of the space is sealed with a unique structure: a closed opening, illuminated from within, made of plexiglass wrapped in blue plastic. This opening creates a sense of inaccessibility – a gate that blocks entry into the world of pixels, leaving the visitors outside the screen.”
- Carmi Dror