Three artists, three questions: From traditional to performative art

For the last several months I have asked 15 Israeli artists the same three questions – and have been fascinated with the variety of answers. 

While some artists seek originality, others prove that this is not the essence of creating and their motivation to work. Some yet, consciously refer to the artists from the past, quoting their methods of working, but giving the work a personal touch.

Over thousands of years in the history of art, originality was not always the key component of success. However, we all know paintings of Rembrandt or Monet and not the artists who followed their styles. 

In this column, I try in my subjective selection to choose these artists whose works stand up and stay with the viewer, whose art – once seen – cannot be unseen.

Three artists agreed to answer 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?

Yossi Mark

Yossi Mark studied philosophy and social sciences at Tel Aviv University and painting at the Avni Institute. Born in 1954, he lives and works in Petah Tikva. He has showcased his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is the founder, teacher, and director of the Institute of Visual Arts at the Petah Tikva Museum of Art.

In 2010, he was awarded the Culture and Sports Ministry Award in Visual Arts; in 2017, the Culture and Sport Ministry Award in Visual Arts; and on June 24 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Shiff Award for Figurative-Realistic Art 2024. Chosen from over 160 artists, the award includes a $10,000 grant and a solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art scheduled for 2025.

Their citation of the artist’s accomplishment reads, “...the veteran and beloved Israeli artist. His works offer a fascinating experience, combining a captivating look of total control with an introspective look of rare pencil, acrylic, and oil.”

Talking to the Magazine, Mark explained that he is very attached to the old Venetian masters’ technique. With a single difference: “In the second phase of painting, they used temper and I use acrylic. But like them, I begin with pencil drawing. Later, it is shown through the layers of acrylic and oil.” His goal is to achieve a relatively transparent effect. Mark keeps his works monochromatic. 

He is known for his deeply humanistic approach and great precision. Each painting takes months of work. He draws living figures, from observation. Mark examines his model with microscopic care. He measures – literally – every millimeter of the figure, leaving the measurement marks visible in the finished painting. 

Mark is also traditional in his style of life; he doesn’t have a website or Instagram. “I try to avoid digital connections as much as I can. I prefer personal ones,” he explained to me. “I don’t have a mobile phone. I now use my wife’s since I received the prize and people call.” 

INSPIRATION: “Intimate, non-staged moments draw me in. These silent episodes of contemplation are imbued within a quiet, collected space, demanding introspection. These are the fleeting glimpses into a simple, naked existence.

“Similarly, I find inspiration in the works of the great masters, both past and present: Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Caravaggio, George de La Tour, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, and others.

“They capture vibrant visual experiences that cultivate a sense of intimacy, interwoven with a poetic and spiritual contemplation of being, essence, and the human condition.

“All these elements – the intimate, the introspective, the echoes of the masters – ignite my visual attention, urging me toward a state of focused concentration. They are the catalysts that spark my creative process.”

MEANING OF ART: “Art, to me, is a living entity that strives to create profound mirrors. It invites viewers on a deep journey that engages their senses, emotions, and intellect, all while maintaining a harmonious balance between form and content. Art serves as a bridge between the ways we know things (epistemology), the nature of reality (ontology), and the lived experience (phenomenology). It is an artist’s ongoing odyssey, a confrontation with reality that seeks to capture it, and then reformulate it as his own truth.

“Visual art thrives when sight transcends to insight, and at its best, the artwork possesses a transformative and evocative power that alters the viewer’s consciousness.

“Only then does it become a worthy vessel for contemplation.”

MARK’S ART: “While my work is distinctly rooted in realism, observing and reflecting reality, it deliberately avoids a purely illusionistic imitation of the surface. This stands in contrast to the more prevalent approach of many realist painters. I translate empirical reality, in its most direct visual sense, into a formal arrangement of lines, tones, and shapes. I emphasize the morphological and tectonic aspects of the subject, employing a restrained use of color. My process is deliberate and extended, leaving traces of the scaffolding that underpins the entire image. These marks are present as a visible infrastructure within the final painting. This approach aims to condense and distill the image.

“Another distinguishing element in my work is the dialogue between narrative and language. The figures in my paintings exude a sense of compassion, warmth, and empathy through their expressions, gaze, body language, and posture. This reflects the existential mindset that underpins my work.” 

Since the artist does not have a site, see: chelouchegallery.com/artists/yossi-mark/

Gili Avissar

A multidisciplinary artist born in Haifa in 1980, Gili Avissar received a BFA and an MFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. He has been creating large-scale textile installations, sculptures, performances, and videos. 

After over 20 years of living and working in Tel Aviv, two years ago he decided to move back to his home city, where he recently opened a solo exhibition titled “Pardes” at the Hecht Museum, at the University of Haifa. He used the space (750 sq.mt.) of the archaeological floor as his studio, preparing the show for over two months. Avissar likes to incorporate an exposition space in his art.

His artworks are intense and colorful, very vivid. The artist collects remnants of fabric, paper, wood, cardboard, and plastic materials “that are available everywhere.” Giving them shapes, he creates new objects.

Looking at his installations, they seem like a dialogue between object-making and performance. Avissar likes to collaborate with artists of different disciplines, including dancers. Above that, he includes elements of fashion, which come as reminiscences of his earlier education (as a teenager, he studied fashion at a high school with an artistic profile in Haifa). While he didn’t pursue a career as a fashion designer, it left a mark in his art. He uses textiles and his own body, often dressing up as part of his installations and performances. 

Talking to the Magazine, he also admitted that he enjoys watching red carpet events and fashion shows, but, as he said: “In art, I found my freedom.”

Avissar is the recipient of the Culture and Sport Ministry Prize for Young Artists (2012); The Rabinovich Art Foundation Award (2012, 2010), and more. His art has been shown at many museums and galleries in Israel, Germany, Czechia [the Czech Republic], and the United States.

INSPIRATION: “Inspiration is everywhere, or I rather use the word ‘motivation.’ What allows you to act and create? The tense situation in Israel makes me act, the relations between people make me act. The word ‘inspiration’ sounds like only beautiful things and people can make you do art, but the opposite is also true. Perhaps by creating from ugliness, you make it prettier.”

MEANING OF ART: “Usually I call art [things] that are very much outside the museum and gallery places, since art exists for me outside. Whether it is nature or people, I enjoy looking at everything the world has to offer. I often see true art in nature, and wonder how those things were done, who created them, and who is the artist.”

AVISSAR’S ART: “I find it hard to differentiate myself or my art from others. Being an artist you work in a very lonely surrounding day after day, while also being part of a community of artists. You relate to what you see around you. Yourself, you might feel unique, but you are also part of something bigger. I feel both different but very much alike, and there is a true tension there.”

www.instagram.com/giliavissar/

Tal Shoshan 

A sculptor, performance artist, and drawing artist, Tal Shoshan was born in Haifa in 1969. After her army service, she moved to Jerusalem, London, Tel Aviv, and Ramat Gan, then settling 12 years ago in Givatayim. 

Shoshan has a BA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in the Department of Jewelry and Clothing Accessories, and an MA from Wimbledon College of Art, London. From 2007-2014, Shoshan headed the field of clothing and accessories in the Design Department at the Kibbutzim Seminar. She is a winner of the Mifal HaPais grant (2017) and the Handler Prize (2014), and has participated in many solo and group exhibitions in Israel and abroad. 

As a sculptor, she works with various textiles, and in the content of her art, she refers to literature and nature. She uses soft materials to show the viewers often difficult messages. In her current exhibition, “Over Night,” at the Chelouche Gallery, she used pieces of bathroom towels to build sculptures. She exposed how everything is temporary. A single tent. The remains of a bonfire. A sleeping bag. A large seedpod. The objects are ephemeral and disintegrated marks of what was once a solid story. 

“I create landscapes that lurch from the personal to the universal, from private engagements to the violent, unsettling surroundings which we come across in our daily life,” she told the Magazine. 

INSPIRATION: “I find inspiration in everything that surrounds me: a sentence that plays in my head and won’t let go, a leaf that falls to the ground, my son’s forgotten shirt in the closet, the creative action of someone whom I appreciate, maps of all kinds, and different materials. The most powerful sources of inspiration are issues that cause me to feel restlessness and conflicted – on a personal, political, or social level, these will follow me to the studio and will oblige me to react. The most persistent and consistent sources of my inspiration are related to my encounters with nature and the human body, which became an inseparable part of my artistic language.”

MEANING OF ART: “A good work of art does not rely on words and text. It should awaken your senses and activate you, conduct a dialogue with you. The words will come later.

“For me, art is the opportunity to meet the unusual and outstanding side of human creation and creativity, one that moves a beat in me, a thought, an emotion, or a desire for touch. One that will continue to play in my head and something from it will remain, even a tiny part. The almost invisible particle will continue to walk along with me.”

SHOSHAN’S ART: “During the past decade, I have found that what fascinates me most is the search for a material language to express in the best way an idea I’m developing. My work process is long and varied, but the principle is often similar – the passionate search for the most appropriate visual language. This slow process allows me to decipher thoroughly what can serve as a visual anchor. 

“Deciphering the material language includes a long and drawn-out process of investigation as combining new materials, testing and manipulating them, and looking for connections and actions that can affect or change them such as decomposition, wetting, sewing, heating. 

“The material is not less important than dealing with forms and ideas – it can become the heart of the idea.” 

www.talshoshan.com/