Maten Ben Tolila

Matan Ben-Tolila was born in 1978 in Israel, where he currently lives and works. Ben-Tolila's works focus on large-scale landscape paintings. His paintings linger on moments in which reality and abstraction co-exist. The scenery appearing in Ben-Tolila's paintings contains temporary structures of different kind and function, constructed with simple, almost schematic elements. Ben-Tolila's work methods include acts of repetition, distortion, filling, and subtraction. He investigates issues of mobility, stability, and control, as well as the lack thereof, suggesting several possibilities simultaneously. Amongst these elements appear an implied human presence, achieved by painting history fragments, remnants of fires, and bodies of water. The temporary structures spread out and conquer the landscape while at the same time blocking it, dictating scale, perspective, and narrative. Though his landscapes seem to describe nowhere specific, they reflect detachment, anxiety, and constant tension, which characterizes life in Israel.

Matan Ben-Tolila's work has been displayed in exhibitions including Shesh-Besh, Petach Tikva Museum of Art; The Same Sea/A Different Coast, Galerie61, Bielefeld, Germany; Vacuum, Rawart Gallery, Tel-Aviv; Open call for snow, Gallery39, Tel-aviv in 2011; Which Created Bezalel, City Gallery, Kfar-Saba; Paper, rock & scissors, The New Gallery, The Artists' Studios, Jerusalem; and Going Out, P8 Gallery, Tel- Aviv, 2010. Ben-Tolila was awarded the Excellence in Painting award in 2006 by the Fine Art Department at the Bezalel Academy of Art& Design in Jerusalem, as well as the Excellence of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Award in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Courtesy of the Noga Gallery