Mirror of the soul—to behold things without overt expression
of thought or judgment. How to present, not describe,
so that one who sees me sees you—and falls silent?
A gentle motion of borrowed time
carries the voice of my solitude.
And here—eyes, lips, nape, the shy distance—
a gaze that seeks to prove nothing.
Is there beauty greater than this?
Is there any order left in this chaotic world?
The waiting—
for the light,
or the voice,
or for that gaze that would reach our depths
and rescue love from within.
Oh reality,
the day will come
when this sweeping vision of beauty
will leave you no choice
but to improve.

Text: Veronica Nicole Tetelbaum

The exhibition title is drawn from Lumière (1976) by Jeanne Moreau—a film about being watched, about the unbearable nearness of friendship.
The women in the film loved each other with a quiet violence. As in life.

Rotner’s new series of color portraits does not speak—it listens. It watches them as they look away, toward something unseen. toward each other.
Or towards us. She films not the moment, but the instant before—or after. The stillness between frames. These are not portraits.
They are remembrances.

Accompanying the portraits are unique 35mm film-strips. Fragile film sequences cut by the artist. Fragments of time, selected carefully from the
reel—each one singular, unrepeatable—bearing witness to the delicate thread between image and memory.