‘Monkeys in the Mist’: An interview with award-winning Israeli artist Eti Jacobi Lelior

Eti Jacobi Lelior, recipient of the 2022 Rappaport Prize for an Established Israeli Artist, talked about her latest exhibition and shared her view on the nature of painting and her individual approach to the process with the Magazine in an exclusive interview.

We met twice. First, at the gala opening of her exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art titled “Monkeys in the Mist,” where I was intrigued by her work; and later on, at the museum after hours for the interview, when she walked me through her show. 

The two-meter monochromatic square paintings she presents at the exhibition are the result of her last 15 years of work. She explained that “a better perception of the works can be achieved while walking next to them than by looking straight at them.”

Jacobi Lelior was born in Jaffa in 1961, raised in Holon, and has been based in Tel Aviv for many years. She studied at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, but just for a year. 

Candidly, she recounted, “I was thrown out [of Bezalel] because I didn’t want to go to classes; I was a free spirit. But nowadays, I teach there and at all the other art schools in Israel.” 

In her younger years, she also studied classics and philosophy, which broadened her horizons. 

As an artist, she is self-taught. She has experimented with drawing, print, animation, etching, and wall painting while maintaining a studio routine focused on superimposing but not mixing colors in acrylic-on-canvas paintings, 

During our interview, to which she arrived on her bicycle, Jacobi Lelior shared her passion for layers of acrylic paint – a technique she has deeply thought through – and spoke about how the history of art is in her DNA. 

Your paintings in ‘Monkeys in the Mist’ at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art splash the viewers with intense colors. Most are monochromatic. Only the last series presented at the show, out of a total of 30 pieces, have figurative details in them, including the monkeys in the title – and the rest of the paintings influence us with their colors alone. Can you explain this?

[Jacobi Lelior pointed at a painting] There are many blues and many reds, but they are separate from one another. If you see a shadow of purple, then you see the shadow because of one layer above the other. All of those paintings are not mixed [paint]. They are all layers of colors.

Sometimes, I paint another layer of blue, maybe three, four, five times blue, one time red, one time blue, another time red... Most of these paintings have hundreds of layers. 

The layers are something very characteristic of your art.

Yes, but when you paint in oil, it goes on naturally (and you can keep it wet). I do it in acrylic. The idea of acrylic is that when it’s dry, then you have [to find your own way] to work with it.

Why did you choose acrylic over oil?

I prefer the flatness of acrylic. I painted with oil, but I never liked the texture. Although I have many paintings that look like oil because I work very fast in acrylic. 

Do you know what you want to paint or is it a process that comes through? 

When I start I have some kind of an idea, a kind of a wish. I know what I want when it’s finished. 

What do you wish for when you stand in front of an empty canvas?

I wish for it to become my painting or composition or something, but not something that has an exact definition. 

You once said that in Israel there is not much shade, and that you use the Israeli light. Can you elaborate?

In the early days of Israel, when painters made aliyah from Paris and [other] places where they used to work, they came here and were shocked with the [local] light. They were trying to avoid it by going ‘against’ the light. For example, they would never have a studio with south-facing windows that provide light from morning to sunset. 

I am the opposite. I feel as though I am trying to express even the experience of this bright ‘sun in your eyes.’ Sometimes, when you look at the sun in Israel you don’t have to look at it [directly] to perceive an image afterward; you see all the colors in your eyes when you are in a too-bright situation [of excessive light], and sometimes they become an image by itself, creating a moment. 

Are your paintings ‘a moment’? 

Sometimes.

When I worked on the white paintings [the white series are presented at the exhibition], I worked in a studio made of cement; it was all gray. It was across from of the sea, in Jaffa. When I entered, for the first few minutes I didn’t see my paintings. It was all white.

It takes some time for your eyes to relax and to see. [Due to the effect of the strong light] For me, it would even take a moment to recall how my idea for these paintings first started. Of course, this series of paintings came after long didactic phases that led up to it. 

The exhibition shows your many years of work. Was it meant as a collection? 

No, it wasn’t. It started with the white series nearly 15 years ago, which I exhibited in 2014, I had been working on it for maybe three years. Then, in 2019, I showed a few of the yellow [series], which you see here on the other side [of the room]. 

It took some years to show them. 

The show is built on several series of your works. Do they have separate names?

No, they don’t, but they were made differently. These from last year, for example, were painted with a roller [for painting walls], not a brush, and in a way are a reflection of the ones on the opposite side of the room – as I was copying myself.

Is this your internal dialogue with yourself?

Yes. And here comes the monkey [from the name of the exhibition] because the monkey is the animal that copies...

Oh, so the monkeys are the painters? I thought there was another explanation for the name of the show.

In art history, the monkey appears as the artist. There are many artists that paint as monkeys. I am the monkey... Painting by itself is not an invention, it is part of the tradition. You start with copying, and then all ‘dissolves’ in you. It comes out of you in a different way. But [at the same time] you cannot copy art because as I said, originality is not an invention either but a new way of putting things together. 

I am not interested in doing something new, just in doing something [that is] mine. So the idea of inventing a new technique is like copying myself.

Were these last five paintings from your latest series made especially for this exhibition? They are very different from the previous ones.

Yes. They were made especially for this kind of installation. I decided to paint more figuratively. For the details (monkeys, people, the scalp) I used a brush; the rest was done with the roller. This series is like a window to the things I painted before, which led to this [show]. It’s a whole circle. 

And what about the five yellow paintings?

All of them are a combination of three primary colors: yellow, blue, and red. Sometimes they become orange, or pink; a lot of greens, or greenish, but it’s not a green by itself, it’s a green that you see through the yellow; you see the blue, then the green. 

My inspiration comes from earlier times, even the Rococo period, or even earlier, when painters allowed themselves to expose brush strokes on the canvas. I really love Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Jean Simeon Chardin, and Francois Boucher.

When you get closer to their paintings, you see the rhythm in them. It’s mostly about the way you see the brushwork and the way the technique is exposed. 

Does your technique refer to this? 

My technique refers to my ambition to make paintings as something that is not pure but rather something that is connected to the main themes of art history and is still able to be something fresh. 

After seeing your exhibition for the first time, I wrote a note to myself: ‘Like a breath of freshness.’ That’s what I felt.  

I have heard that from many people. During this time [of ongoing war], coming in here... it’s not something that is imposed on you. 

In this exhibition, these paintings are not supposed to ‘attack’ you, they are supposed to offer a certain kind of strange agreement between a painting and the spectator. So if you allow yourself to see, then it opens up to you because there is no secret.

Do you consider yourself an abstract artist? 

Yes, I’m not. [Laughed]

I’m not into a field of color. For example, some see a resemblance to [the work of Mark] Rothko. I’m honored by the comparison, but his work is different from mine because I also originated my compositions in classical art. 

In my last series, there are some hints from [the art of] Nicolas Poussin. His composition, for me and many artists since the 18th century, has been like a guide toward modern painting. There is also some reference to Impressionism, to ‘Monetism’ [from Impressionist painter Claude Monet]. 

I can see that in some of your colors... I also read that you refer directly to Cezanne, Chagall, and the Baroque in your work, but I’m sorry, I don’t see it. 

It’s good that you don’t see it because it’s in my head. It doesn’t have to be on [the canvas]... I mean, artists work from reference.

So you don’t quote them in your paintings. Is it rather an inspiration? 

I absorb it. I believe that good artists do that with the history of art. They absorb it when they study it, and then it becomes part of their bodies. And their bodies are the bodies that paint. So, it is in my body and mind.

In your DNA. 

Yeah, I have a lot of it. I have my own story of my history of art and my history of painting. I’m a painter, not an artist.

When did you start exhibiting?

I took part in my first group show when I was 20 years old, before I studied at Bezalel. My first solo exhibition was in 1989. I started to paint as a little girl, maybe five years old, and I even had a ‘studio’ on my parents’ enclosed balcony.

When did you move to Tel Aviv? 

I moved to Tel Aviv in the 1980s. I was thrown out of Bezalel after only a year of studies because I didn’t go to classes. I then went to New York for a year in 1983. There, I attended drawing classes for five days a week  – and I went there to see art. In 1983, it was the only place in the world for it. 

So, in fact, you are an autodidact.

Yes, I am. But now I teach over there – at Bezalel – and at all the art schools in Israel.

Moreover, in 2022, you received the Rappaport Prize for an Established Israeli Artist. That is very impressive! And why did you study classics?

When I came back from New York in 1985, I needed to make my parents happy, [to prove] that I was not a total dropout; so I got my BA in philosophy and classics from Tel Aviv University. But I went only to those classes that I found interesting – and I was painting all the time. 

How long does it take you to complete one painting?

It depends. Some can take weeks, sometimes even two months. 

Apart from painting, you use other techniques and media.

I use animation, print, and etching. I draw every day; it’s a daily practice. The images [I draw] are table size and mostly come from other artists’ paintings and drawings. 

Is it like stretching for you? Like morning gymnastics?

Exactly.

I must ask you about cave paintings. I read that they are important to you.

All my work has a lot to do with animation. In Hebrew, it is called anfasha, like nefesh (soul), and [in English] animation like anima [in Latin], bringing something from stillness into motion.  

When I look at my work, I believe that you have to walk through it. It moves with you. This is how I understand cave paintings: The first painter tried to depict movement, chasing, and running – he did not try to depict the animal, the herd, or the hunter. 

This may be the source of my fascination with animation. In a painting, I connect motion and stillness harmoniously.

I also read that you aim for perfection. Is that true?

It’s about being perfect. I think all artists strive for a perfect result in what they are doing. What is more accurate is to say that I know that I am getting better all the time. That is why I allow myself to do some art again and again because each time, it comes out better.  

www.etijacobi.com/www.tamuseum.org.il/en/exhibition/eti-jacobi-lelior-monkeys-mist/