Regina Rex presents a project by Tel Aviv-based artist Avi Sabah. Sabah's series of collages, "18 Nights" incorporates found imagery of paintings by Cezanne, Gauguin and Lautrec, and uses imagery by these European masters as foundation for an oily, black surface which connects to local materials and personal memories. These collages pose the question of how to situate an intimate, personal landscape/narrative amidst the larger canon of art historical painters. In another series of portraits called "Badad," multiple layers of papers are soaked in oil and oil paint, to create skins that are then separated. These ghostly faces recall memories from serving in the military, where the line between innocence and violence, imagination and reality is often blurred.
Avi Sabah was born in Ma'alot Tarshicha, Israel, in 1977 and currently lives and works in Tel Aviv. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, where he received his BFA with honors, and he is currently a lecturer at the art department. Sabah participated in various exhibitions includes the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Haifa Museum, The Artists House in Jerusalem and in galleries in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, New York, London, Tokyo, Bregenz, Hamburg and more. Sabah was awarded the Mozes prize for young Israeli painters and the Ministry of Culture Prize. He is also one of the co-founders of "Barbur", a gallery for contemporary and social art in Jerusalem.
|
