Naomi Shalev
''Wind in the tree tops'' 2016

''Wind in the tree tops'' 2016

Collage made of newspapers - framed 

55/40 cm

signed

Meet the best collage artist in the Land of Israel - meet Naomi Shalev

Naomi Shalev, born in Ukraine (1976) is an Israeli artist known for her complex collages.

Naomi lives and works in Yokneam Illit. In her works, Naomi tells her personal story.

Naomi describes her excellent work:

'' I create collages from newspaper clippings from the late 1990s.

My affair with collages began with pornographic magazines. Many years ago, a friend gave me a collection of his Playboy and Hustler magazines - which he no longer needed. I also did not know exactly what to do with that pile ...

I started cutting out pictures and putting them together in funny compositions. I had no better idea at the time. Later I was looking for ways to make larger compositions - I have always loved oversized projects. This is how the technique I work with to this day was born - the use of tears on newspaper pages instead of a brush and paints: painting with newspapers ''.

'' One of the basic elements in my work is suffering. Like any human being, I too have so many unfulfilled desires that will never be expressed, that cause intense mental suffering! This is the statistic - raw material from which, just like pieces of old magazines, I am putting together a new reality - private, much richer and more satisfying than the one I am imprisoned in here, in my physical body. A reality in which I have complete control over how things will look, proceed and develop - something I so miss in the "real" world! "

'' In my works there is always a narrative - a story that is the real reason for the work. A portrait is just a medium through which the story is told. It is true that most of the stories I tell are very personal and even intimate, but at the same time I want to believe that an attentive viewer will be able to "read" them even without knowing me and my life details.

The line between being clear enough to arouse interest and being too verbal is thin and dangerous. But that's exactly what interests me as an artist - to create a readable and recognizable personal symbolic world, but also one that leaves enough room for personal interpretation. "