Oren Eliav
Israeli artist Oren Eliav creates deceptive and ambiguous paintings rooted in the history of Western culture and embedded within Christian religious imagery. Raised under the Jewish faith in Israel and later moving to the United States, Eliav has a unique relationship to Western-Christian culture as he examines religious imagery and optical phenomena to expose the relationship between seeing and believing. His paintings, which portray extravagant ornamentation, hollow-eyed portraits, and capacious architecture, explore the historical implications of his subjects through implementation of old-world painting techniques with his own. By layering brush strokes and stripping them away, Eliav paints by pushing and pulling, allowing for the illusion of a double presence. His pieces, which exude an ominous tone or spirit, have an overbearing physical presence given their surface qualities.
Represented by Braverman Gallery, Eliav has held a number of solo exhibitions in Tel Aviv at the Braverman Gallery and the Givon Gallery, as well as in Paris at the Suzanne Tarasieve Gallery. Eliav was honored with the 2010 Rappaport Prize for a Young Israeli Painter at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. In addition to his solo shows, Eliav has participated in group exhibitions hosted by the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Fondazione …
Israeli artist Oren Eliav creates deceptive and ambiguous paintings rooted in the history of Western culture and embedded within Christian religious imagery. Raised under the Jewish faith in Israel and later moving to the United States, Eliav has a unique relationship to Western-Christian culture as he examines religious imagery and optical phenomena to expose the relationship between seeing and believing. His paintings, which portray extravagant ornamentation, hollow-eyed portraits, and capacious architecture, explore the historical implications of his subjects through implementation of old-world painting techniques with his own. By layering brush strokes and stripping them away, Eliav paints by pushing and pulling, allowing for the illusion of a double presence. His pieces, which exude an ominous tone or spirit, have an overbearing physical presence given their surface qualities.
Represented by Braverman Gallery, Eliav has held a number of solo exhibitions in Tel Aviv at the Braverman Gallery and the Givon Gallery, as well as in Paris at the Suzanne Tarasieve Gallery. Eliav was honored with the 2010 Rappaport Prize for a Young Israeli Painter at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. In addition to his solo shows, Eliav has participated in group exhibitions hosted by the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Haifa Museum of Art, Liverpool Biennial, Glasgow School of Art, and others.
