Drora Dominey

Born on Kibbutz Merhavya, 1950
Lives and works in Tel Aviv

In 2004, Drora Dominey began drawing volleyball players based on photographs from the International Volleyball Federation's official website. She typically isolates a single player, and thus detaches her from the context of the group ethos. (Male) sports photographers usually focus on attacks and blocking, while their high-quality, high-resolution photographs capture the bodies of the young female players in an intrusive manner. Dominey's drawings restore to the players their female identity and selfhood; she focuses on every eyelash, earring, ribbon, or hair clip, and presents refined images of athletic, feminine women. The names she gives the players, which are anchored in Christian or Classical mythology, render them "larger than life." The five players of Italy's national team represent a rare moment of collective engagement that alludes to an experience of religious ecstasy in the style of
Bernini's Saint Teresa and Blessed Ludovica; Savior and Messengers capture moments of incredible heroism; the tall figure of Fabiana, from the Cuban team, holds a ball with utmost concentration, like Atlas carrying the Earth on his back. And Panther features a female heroine whose traits are at once contemporary and eternal.


Volleyball Players

In her youth, Drora Dominey was a member of Israel's women's volleyball team. Due to the collective character of this game, volleyball was a sport commonly played on the country's kibbutzim, and Dominey had become acquainted with it during her childhood on a kibbutz.