Tamar Simon
HaMidrasha graduate. Had a solo exhibition at Nulobaz Collaborative Space for Contemporary Art and participated in group exhibitions at the Artists’ Studios in Tel Aviv, Zuzu Gallery, Be’er Shava Museum, Zadik Gallery and more. Simon’s paintings and drawings deal with the tension between the individual and the public, as well as the beauty and violence which result from this tension. The materials and tools she uses are removed from their low-cost sources and placed at the center of the viewer's gaze through concentrated artistic action. Portrait painting is the primary tool through which she attempts to give contemporary form and meaning to this traditional craft. Her recent projects focus on a multiplicity of individual portraits, based on live models, photographs she takes herself and photographed images she collects, mostly of African refugees. The portraits express feelings of alienation and fear as well as the tension between what is broken and disconnected and what is whole. These are the same emotions which motivate Simon as she encounters her sources of inspiration – images of refugees that have recently disembarked from a ship, Shakespearean figures from old plays, self-portraits and classic paintings from art history – and they are what drive her need to paint each character just as she experiences them.
