For a year now, in the search for new artists for my column “Three artists, three questions,” I have been fascinated by how Israel is so rich in artists and exhibitions, from which I dare to choose three artists each month. Sometimes I pursue a certain subject, sometimes a subject chooses me.
I look for artwork that catches my attention, that either intrigues me or gives me visual pleasure. This time, I chose artists (by coincidence three women, born in three different decades) whose artwork had very different effects on me: The first intrigued me; the second resonated with the Oct. 7 experiences of the society, which are still very present in our lives; and the third let me relax, by just looking at it. Art plays different roles in our perceptions and lives, and these artists profoundly prove that.
Their exhibitions are on display in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.
Three Israeli artists answered my three questions:
1. What inspires you?
2. What do you call art?
3. What, in your opinion, makes your artwork different from that of other artists?
Maya Shimony
Maya Shimony was born in 1976 in the small town of Neveh Monosson. At the age of six, she moved with her family to Kiryat Ono, where she lives to this day. She studied art in high school in a newly opened art class. She continued her art education at HaMidrasha school of art, and then in the master’s of fine arts degree program of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, in collaboration with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
She works mostly with paintings and painting installations, in which she juxtaposes paintings on canvas or paper with site-specific works that anchor everything in physical space.
“I create a sense of a certain place,” she told me. Her works are strongly connected to the locations of her exhibitions.
She likes to explore new techniques and materials. One of the most characteristic materials of her work is gold leaves, which she incorporates in smaller works on paper or photographic prints.
Specially for her current exhibition, “The Pertinent Facts,” at Studio of Her Own in Jerusalem, Shimony learned a new technique, which she used in the central piece of the show – a lino print/wallpaper. Its damask pattern blends motifs from the different cultures that inhabited the space that now houses the gallery which formerly was a private home during the Ottoman Empire, British Mandate, and Israeli periods. “It offers the visual presence of the ghosts that imbue the house.”
As the viewer walks along the eight-meter-long wall, the pattern gradually begins to change – shifting, merging, distorting, and falling apart.
Inspiration: “I am inspired by images that feel ‘heavier’ to me than others, that seem off in some way, out of place or time, despite their contemporary appearance. It can be a journalistic photo, a phrase, a physical place, or even a palm tree or poppy flower.
“These are usually images in which I recognize conflicting meanings attached to them by competing histories.”
Meaning of art: “Art is my native tongue. It is how I understand and negotiate the world, another channel that runs alongside verbal language. It is how I think and process things.
“But art is also a desire or fulfillment of longing, which usually doesn’t have a name or shape. I make the paintings I wish I would have already had.
“This is even stronger in the installation works; it’s like I create the spaces I want to be in, a place [where] I want to exist in the world. So I create it. For me, it is the ultimate alchemy.”
Shimony’s art: “A central throughline in my work is its relation to contemporariness. There is something tricky about the first encounter with my works – it is hard to place and date them. They seem like they were extracted from a specific place and time, which isn’t today’s Israel; but the more you try to put your finger on where or when, the deeper down the rabbit hole you go. The veneer of the contemporary often veils old-fashioned ideas.
“I think of my art as a type of reverse engineering, where the image is freed from the facade of the contemporary and reimagined in its possible original visual language.
“On both sides, [my family] came from places that changed several hands in a short period: an Armenian town in Turkey and a town in Iranian Azerbaijan on my Nash Didani father’s side, who fled to Jerusalem via Baku and Tbilisi after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; and a region that shifted from [being] predominantly Austrian to Romanian to Ukrainian during World War II, when my mother was born there and was sent to the Transnistria concentration camp as a baby.
“This ambiguous and fluid attitude toward territory-based cultural identity resonates in my life and in my art, and I think perhaps most explicitly in this exhibition.”
Dina Shenhav
Dina Shenhav, born in Jerusalem in 1968, lives and works in Tel Aviv. She has a bachelor of fine arts degree from HaMidrasha school of art and a master’s of fine arts degree from the University of Haifa.
Shenhav is an installation artist dealing with questions and issues related to politics, society, history, archaeology, and the complex relationship between man and nature. She works in large-scale installations, video, photography, and painting.
She has exhibited in over 20 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions worldwide. Among them are Arte Laguna, Arsenal of Venice; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Middle East Center for the Arts, Jersey City, New Jersey; Art in General, New York; and Goethe-Institute, St. Petersburg.
Her latest show, “Soft” at Parterre Projects Gallery in Tel Aviv, displays works created during the last year and a half, since Oct. 7.
Inspiration: “I’m [generally] inspired by situations of aggressive conflicts. I am interested in examining the cruelty and brutality of man as opposed to the tenderness and humanity inherent in him. I deal with apocalyptic themes and create works depicting devastation and destruction. I’m interested in characters perceived as embodiments of evil. I am engaged in the struggle between the two aspects, between what is defined as ‘good’ and what is defined as ‘bad.’
“The events of Oct. 7 had a very profound impact [on me and my art]. The first thing I managed to create was by painting flowers. I love flowers and thought I might find comfort in them.
“At first, the flowers were realistic, but during the process they began to morph and fade, and in terms of how I felt they started to cry as well. [Some of the flower series are in the current exhibition.]
“Since Oct. 7, portraits of the murdered, wounded, and kidnapped have appeared everywhere – on all the streets, in the newspapers, and on the screens; every way we looked, [there were] images of people who have experienced something terrible or are sorry for those who did.
“The second series in my ‘Soft’ exhibition consists of unidentified portraits – figures I invented, all crying.
“Another piece of art in the exhibition is a large mosaic based on Rembrandt’s painting The Sacrifice of Isaac. The Sacrifice of Isaac is one of the most powerful and difficult stories in Jewish culture. I think of it every few years when I feel it is relevant.”
Meaning of art: “For me, a work of art is something created out of the desire to make art.
“Art, in my opinion, tries to bring change – whether a change in thought or emotion. It tries to ask questions differently, to open new or different directions. Good art succeeds in doing this.”
Shenhav’s art: “When an artist is authentic, they will always be different from others simply because everyone else is different.
“I think one of the things that maybe makes the way I create my works different is my search for materials.
“I feel that each material gives me a new dialogue. For me, materials are the essence that tell me a new story and allow me to engage with something specific. I try to ensure that everything comes together: my interest, my thought process, and the material.
In ‘Soft,’ I created a series of works with small beads. This technique helps me work through difficult things, to build them slowly, with a material I know from childhood – a material used for making jewelry, a material from the world of beauty but transferred to the realm of pain.”
Yael Erlich Morag
Yael Erlich Morag is a puppeteer, wood-carver, and watercolor artist, based in Haifa.
She was born in 1958 and grew up in Rishon Lezion. Art was not her first career choice. After the army, she studied literature and philosophy at Bar-Ilan University. In her 20s, she moved with her husband to the Galilee to build a new community settlement, Mitzpe Harashim, where they lived for 28 years.
She taught literature at a local high school there for seven years. “But I wanted to find something for my soul, and by accident I discovered a puppeteer world,” she recounted. “In 2008 I established the puppetry school and the Bait 9 theater.”
She learned to carve marionettes out of wood in Prague, and soon after she started to teach it.
However, it was not the marionettes but her watercolor paintings that caught my attention. With great sensitivity, she portrays nature, people, urban landscapes, and, as she described it, the “vivid moments.”
She compared the process of painting to meditation, a process to which she said she is addicted; she needs to paint every day.
She discovered watercolor painting relatively late, in the last decade, and she traveled around Europe to study it. “I learned from masters in Spain, France, and Portugal: Alvaro Castagnet, Marc Folly, Ilya Ibraev, and Eudes Correia.”
In recent years Erlich Morag has had a few solo exhibitions in Israel. Now on view is “Aquarelles,” at the lobby of Bait 9 theater in Haifa. And this spring, she will participate in a group watercolor exhibition in Italy.
Inspiration: “Certain moments in life feel too significant to pass by unnoticed. These moments, however, are not meant to be frozen in time but rather to be allowed to flow – like the fluidity of watercolor itself.
“I am endlessly fascinated by people – their expressions, their stories, their energy. Light, too, captivates me. It dances and shifts, shaping the world in ways that feel [are] almost magical.
“When I paint, I delight in the unpredictability of watercolor. I allow the colors and water to merge and flow freely, playing with textures and stains, and letting the process surprise me. In this unpredictability lies the heart of my art – a balance of control and surrender, creation and discovery.”
Meaning of art: “Good art has the power to innovate and refresh perspectives. It invites those who encounter it to pause, feel, and reflect. Art is more than a creation – it is an experience. It reveals layers of reality and emotion while simultaneously concealing others, sparking curiosity and wonder.
“The best art, in my opinion, opens our eyes to new dimensions of seeing and understanding while leaving us with a lingering sense of mystery and enigma. It speaks to both the tangible and the intangible, exploring the boundaries between presence and absence, the real and the imagined.”
Erlich Morag’s art: “I came to watercolor painting after more than 30 years of working in the field of puppetry. Transitioning to watercolor painting was like opening a gateway to a new world, one that deeply connects me to the places and people I encounter. While painting, I feel a vitality and inner flow that are irreplaceable.
“My art is characterized by a free and flowing style, expressed through natural color washes and energetic brushstrokes. I love the unpredictability of watercolor – the way water and pigments flow together, creating surprises and plays of light and shadow.
“The fusion of different worlds and the ability to translate experiences and emotions into colors and shapes are essential parts of my art.”