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As Early as New York

May 6, 2006- June 3, 2006

Yigal Ozeri

Mike Weiss Gallery

520 W 24th St

At this very moment, certain photographers are printing their images onto canvases in order to achieve the illusion of painting. The boundaries between painting and photography are dissolving indeed, as photographers use Photoshop to digitally tweak forms, surfaces, colors and tones, as if they were painters. Yigal Ozeri, on the other hand, continues to carry on his project of developing a type of painting that successfully evokes a variety of sensations achieved through photography.

In the oil paintings on paper that comprise Ozeri’s new exhibition, entitled As Early as New York, the artist slips with ever-greater ease from the effects that are characteristic of painting to those inherent to photography.

The protagonist in this body of work is a young woman with gracefully chiseled features named Sasha. Her hair, which is tightly curled and reaches down past her shoulders, plays a conspicuous role, in part because she is so often shown bust-length. Sasha’s hair flows amply, thereby becoming an image of abundance and perhaps – consequently – of youth and fertility. Ozeri’s muse brings to mind his own head of long, curly hair, thereby suggesting that in this suite of pictures, Sasha serves as the artist’s alter ego. It is worth noting that this woman looks backs at us intently in several of the painting, as do artists who are depicted in self-portraits.

Leaves and trees also play an important role in many of Ozeri’s new paintings. Significantly, the title of one of the pictures alludes to hair and Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and spring, in the same breath, thereby unmistakably alluding to hair in the context of fertility and the renewal of the cycle of life. As a group, these paintings, with their widely varying moods, hint at a greater allegory conceived by the artists, working in the guise of the painter-poet of lore.

Yigal Ozeri was born in Israel in 1958 and has been working and living in New York since 1991. He has exhibited extensively throughout Israel, Europe and the United States, and his work has been presented in two solo-exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the most recent of which was accompanied by a major, 400 page full-color monograph. His work can be found in many prominent collections, including The Jewish Museum, New York; The Tel Aviv Museum of Art; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Ein Harod Museum; The Albertina Musuem, Vienna; The Museum of Modern Art, Haifa; the Kennedy Center for the Arts, Washington DC; and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. This is his third exhibition at Mike Weiss Gallery.

Books and DVDs related to artists in this show

Location   Gallery Mike Weiss Gallery Address 520 W 24th St New York (Chelsea) NY, 10011 United States Phone 212-691-6899 Fax 212-691-6877 Hours Tue-Sat 10-6

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