Bio
Alma Itzhaky is a Tel-Aviv Based artist (born 1984). She has won major prizes, including the Rappaport Prize for a Young Artist (2014), and the Osnat Mozes Painting Prize (2012). She has had three solo exhibition, most recently at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2015). Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions and is included in major public and private collections, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art collection. Itzhaky has also participated in international workshops and residencies, including the Bronner Residency (Düsseldorf, 2012), and the NARS Foundation Residency (NYC, 2016). She served as lecturer and coordinator of theoretical studies in the advanced studio program in art at Beit Berl College and is currently teaching at the interdisciplinary art department at Shenkar Academy.
Itzhaky’s work is embedded in the tradition of figurative painting, and strives to relate this tradition to an Israeli context and find new ways of using painting as a viable medium for addressing contemporary reality. Her large-scale paintings depict social scenes and moments of encounter, set in the urban surroundings of Tel Aviv – Jaffa. These encounters are violent as much as they are erotic and blissful, always undulating between the two possibilities. They touch on the aggressive potential latent in every group situation, but also on sentiments of solidarity and identification.