Circle of Life: The Mystical Experience of the Wild Cat (1986)

Zadok Ben-David spent his early years in Yemen and then Israel, and memories of strong sunlight casting crisp shadows and the fusion of Middle Eastern and Western cultures seep subliminally into his work. In Circle of Life: The Mystical Experience of the Wild Cat (1986) Ben-David has drawn the 'cage' in wire, which he has thickened by an application of resin, which in turn allowed him to create a textured surface. The caged cat was cut from wood and the surface similarly treated. An even larger related sculpture is at Limehouse Link, London, which was commissioned by London Docklands Development Corporation, in 1993. Again, a yellow figure lies behind a network of others. "There is no colour in Ben-David's art as direct and dramatic as the yellow he unleashes in The Mystical Experience of the Wild Cat. Curiously substantial and insubstantial at the same time, it is a colour, which plays tricks with your eyes. If most of Ben-David's recent work reveals a renewed commitment to his origins, nowhere is it more obvious than here that he is the son of a Yemeni goldsmith." (Januszczak, 1987)

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