What is Ivory?

Ivory is a hard, white material, derived from the tusks and teeth of animals, that is used in art or manufacturing.
It consists of dentine, a tissue that is similar to bone.
Elephant ivory has been the most important source, but ivory from many species including the hippopotamus, walrus, pig, sperm whale, and narwhal have been used throughout the years.

Ivory has many ornamental and practical uses. Prior to the introduction of plastics, it was used for billiard balls, piano keys, Scottish bagpipes, buttons and a wide range of ornamental items.
Synthetic substitutes for ivory have been developed. Plastics have been viewed by piano purists as an inferior ivory substitute on piano keys, although other recently developed materials more closely resemble the feel of real ivory.

A species of hard nut is gaining popularity as a replacement for ivory, although its size limits its usability.
It is sometimes called vegetable ivory, or tagua, and is the seed endosperm of the ivory nut palm commonly found in coastal rainforests of Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.

Since the 17th century, in Siberia, mammoth ivory has been carved, but has also been used to barter for other products.
Being a main center for mammoth ivory procurement, Siberian permafrost holds more than half of the extinct Woolly Mammoth carcasses that are the source of the milky white ivory that conforms to all international legal standards.

As ivory has the potential to be bleached, inlaid and carved, it has always been a highly prized raw material since man populated the Earth.
Humans took to expression in the form of paintings and carving, ivory has been the most preferred medium of expression. 
Art of carving ivory for ornamental or useful purposes, practiced from prehistoric to modern times. 
The ivory most frequently used is obtained from elephant tusks, but other types of ivory or substitute materials include the tusks, teeth, horns, and bones of the narwhal, walrus, and other animals, 
as well as vegetable ivory and synthetic ivories.

About Bosmat Niron

Profound artist and curator. Born in Tel Aviv in the year 1972.
When she was young, she spent several years in South America and in Spain. Niron is one of
the most outstanding painters and sculptors in the eco art; she exhibits internationally,
having gained widespread recognition from Museums and art institutions both in Israel and
overseas. Niron’ s bridging between community, municipalities and industry through Arts, She
holds the capacity of curator of the city of Ramat-Gan, as well as being a consultant on
environment and ecological art.
Her art moves in two planes – ecological and feminine. She principally focuses on community
projects that are implemented in the public space, whereby she assimilates to those the|}
above-mentioned values. Her works are generally marked by use of readymade material, or

“capitalist trash” that makes up fertile ground for her work and for the single artist exhibitions

she held at various museums. Into her conception that “there is a treasure in the trash” she
embeds mystic, spiritual messages and contents, along with myths, drawing as she does on
the principle of eco-philosophy and Mother Earth. The sensation of the sublime in nature
found in her work thus amounts to paying tribute to its destination. He work carries with it a
wealth of narratives that are found in the collective memory and rest upon the values of
morality and beauty. It is her hope that her work of art will set in motion the rectification she

wants to take place, which is to be based on positive thought, optimism and infinite hope.

Niron deals and researches the eco-philosophy and the sublime. Her works of art are entirely

confident in the power of nature itself and art to reach salvation. She binds together the

female experience, the ecological basics, the nature, and the mystics and presents her

collection bearing the name “Goddess”. The female character is characterized with strength

and constitutes a symbol to the myth that Goddesses symbolized life, eternity and constant

regeneration. The contexts of the Goddess constitute an extraordinary combination of

messages, enlightenment, and sensitivity, longing and yearning. Niron sows seeds of new

consciousness. The Goddesses represent life, delight. They are the ones to represent Eros. In

her works of art the Goddesses are captured while meditating, appear in nature that

integrates energetic symbols and spiritual iconography that are identified with the Magna

Mater, part of which is recognized by the collective memory. The Goddesses represent female

energy, sacred power and primary power of the entire universe. Her works of art expose
spiritual motives identified with eco-femininity have become of presence in her spiritual
world. The interpretation requires deep research. Niron draws the spiritual strength from
multi-dimensional historical roots which constitute an expression to the essential
relationship, to the cosmic myth of the Magna Mater, and to the ecological and spiritual
revolution that takes place throughout these days. In this basic discussion Niron presents
each one’s personal responsibility to make an amendment. Niron sees Eros as the universal
force of life that stands behind love and behind the actual process of making and it treats
sexuality as temporal. However, Niron describes Eros as transcendental, such that constitutes
the strength to life itself. Eros is primeval and timeless as life itself.
Niron thinks that it is time that ecological post-modern art started creating positive effects
and met the real practice of the people exercising their freedom. As she say’s “the theology of
the eco-art thus calling for sensible, well thought out use of the existing material, for activism,
for community sharing and for globalization. It is through sensible well-contemplated use of
archetypes and collective knowledge that the rationale will produce temporary esthetic and
emotional values that will operate on universal dimensions and tighten the romantic exotic
connection to nature”.

About Leonid Balaklav

Leonid Balaklav was born in 1956 in Moldavia. He graduated from the Art school in Kiev (1971-1973), and from the Art Institute in Odessa (1974).
Balaklav immigrated to Israel in 1990 and settled in Jerusalem. 
Balaklav was known as a promising artist in Moldavia. in his early work in Russia, he sought to conduct a dialogue with the works of the great masters such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Repin. 
The acme of Balaklav's paintings is the self portraits; in these paintings, he puts himself into states of environmental pressure, one can feel the absent presence of the artist, it seems like he is fading in the nothingness around him. 
Balaklav lives and works in Jerusalem. 
His works are exhibited in museums, galleries and private collections in Israel and worldwide.

Awards
1987: Gold Medal at the International Film Festival, Tokyo
1995: Jerusalem Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Jerusalem
2002: The Israel Museum & Israel Discount Bank Prize for an Israeli Artist

Solo Exhibitions
1978: Scientists' House, Kiev, Ukraine, USSR
1988: The Jewish Center, Moscow, USSR
1989: Central Artists' House, Kishinev, Moldavia, USSR
1991: "Immigrant Artists", Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
1993: "Cypresses", Artists' House, Jerusalem
1994: "From There to Here", Ein Harod Museum of Art, Ein Harod, Israel
1997: "Drawings '93-'97", Herzliya Museum of Art, Herzliya, Israel
1997: "New Works", Artists' House, Jerusalem
1998: "Landscape and Still-Life", Artspace, Jerusalem
2000: "Portrait", Artspace, Jerusalem
2002-2003: "The Face of the Light", Ein Harod Museum, Ashdod Museum, Rehovot Museum, Mane-Katz Museum, Haifa, Bat Yam Museum (an exhibition of the Forum of Israeli Art Museums)

About Eduard Grossman

Eduard Grossman was born in November, 1946 in Kendige-Pogost, in the Komy Republic of Russia.

In 1980 he earned an M.A. in Art at the Faculty of Painting and Graphics of the University of Magnetogorsk.
In 1980, Eduard was appointed as the Director of the Institute for Art and Design Arts for the city of Chelyabinsk, and served as the top artist for the city of Chelyabinsk, a post he held until 1990, and during this time, Eduard was allowed and able to open the first ever privately owned design studio and office in the Soviet Union, holding design exhibitions throughout Europe.

Grossman left Russia in 1991, and was invited to live and work in the famous and exclusive “Artist’s Village” in Northern Israel, where he spent almost 12 years, creating his new style and exhibiting in Israel, Germany, France, Austria, Canada, NYC and Chicago.

About Sionah Tagger

Sionah Tagger was born in 1900 in Israel. She attended evening classes at Constant's Studio in Tel Aviv and in 1921 she turned to study in the Bezalel School of Art and Design in Jerusalem under the guidance of Boris Schatz and Abel Pann. In 1924 she traveled to Paris, studied at the Academie L'hote, and participated in the exhibition of the Salon des Independents. In 1925 she returned to Israel and joined a group of Modern painters: Israel Paldi, Reuven Rubin, Arieh Lubin, Joseph Zaritsky and others. She co exhibited with them in the Ohel in Tel Aviv and the Tower of David in Jerusalem. In 1930 she joined the Hebrew Artists Association. In 1937 she was awarded the Dizingoff Prize from the municipality of Tel-aviv, and was among the founders of the Painters' and Sculptures' association's pavilion in Tel-aviv. Over the years Tagger continued to exhibit her paintings in Israel as well as outside of the country. In World War II she volunteered for the British Army and in 1942 she joined the Haganah. In 1948 she represented Israel in the Venice Biennale. In 1977 she was awarded the title 'honored citizen of Tel-aviv'. Tagger's art style was created of dialectical tendencies – on one hand, a quest for the universal, turning to the European Modern Art, and on the other, a return to her own roots and to the local. Tagger remained a figurative painter; even in her most abstract phases she remained loyal to practicality. Tagger's best-known genre was portrait painting. The portraits she painted in the 1920s were created from many sketches. Their artistic style was a combination of Cubistic and Naïve art. A three-dimensional attention to volume, with powerful light-dark contrasts and well-defined stains of color, together magnified the emotional impact of the work. A similar artistic style was a component of her landscape paintings. Tagger liked to draw the view of Tel Aviv and until the 1960s she chose to rent penthouses in Tel Aviv, in order to watch the city's vista, seashore as well as skyline. The exaggeration of the colors, the perspectives as well as the compositions of those paintings expressed the extreme feelings that rose from her gazing. The train movement and tempo in one of her paintings reminds one of the Futuristic's excitement regarding this vehicle. Sionah Tagger is the most important female Israeli artist from the early decades of the 20th century. She passed away in the spring of 1988.

About Dale Chihuly

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country at the University of Wisconsin. In 1968, Dale Chihuly was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to work at the "Venini" factory in Venice, Italy. While in Venice, Chihuly observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today. 

After an automobile accident in 1976 in which he lost the sight in his left eye, Chihuly relinquished the gaffer (chief glassblower) position and turned over that position to William Morris. Utilizing Morris' substantial talent and physical strength, Chihuly developed the large scale, multi-colored forms known as the Macchia series.

His work is included in over two hundred museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including seven honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Chihuly has created many well-known series of works, among them the Baskets, Persians, and Seaforms, but he is also celebrated for large architectural installations. In 1995 he embarked on the multi-faceted international project, "Chihuly over Venice," which involved working in glass factories in Finland, Ireland and Mexico, with the resultant sculptures installed over the canals and piazze of Venice. 

Chihuly’s lifelong affinity for glasshouses has grown into a series of exhibitions within botanical settings. His garden exhibition was first presented in 2001 at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. 

In 2005, Chihuly exhibited at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, near London, and at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida in both 2006 and 2007. An exhibition at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania opened in May, 2007.

About Maya Green

Maya Green was born in 1957 in Donetsk, Ukraine. There she received her degree in art studies. In 1996, 

she immigrated to Israel and settled in the city of Tiberias in northern Israel on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. 
The Galilee region is often a subject of her works.

Maya aptly uses a palette knife to achieve an impasto technique. 
By applying oil paints in bold colors, she transforms her sketches of northern Israel views.
In her paintings she emphasizes the importance of composition, especially the contrast between light and shadow and the differences between the seasons.

The artist describes her work in her own words:

“I seek to complement the moments I encounter.
I attempt breaking down life to its visual essentials: light, dark, balance, movement, tone.
In doing so, perhaps I can reveal a new perspective. I enjoy capturing the essence of a moment.”

“I consider a painting complete when the idea I am trying to express matches the thoughts in my mind. 
Often, this process leaves me naked and feeling exceptionally vulnerable.
If somebody, while looking at my artwork, gets that special feeling of something personal, I’m satisfied.”

Many works by Maya Green are in private collections in Russia, Israel, Scotland, America and Japan.

About Liliane Danino

Liliane Danino was born in 1951 in Morocco.
A self-taught painter and sculptor, who finds stimulation in reading, dance, and life’s emotions, 
Liliane Danino sees art as “a language made up of vibrations”. 
Her passionate commitment has led her into teaching art, creating set designs, working as a theatrical make-up artist, and creating special effects for film productions.

Liliane’s work has been exhibited regularly since 1978 in France, Morocco, Israel, USA, Canada, and around the world.
In the course of time, she has extended her sphere of interests to embrace different forms of expression, 
and has used the experience of traveling throughout the world to develop a constantly evolving style of painting.
The characters she has met, and the places she has seen, have produced a vision of a colorful slumbering Orient which calls to mind watercolors of the early explorers.
Impulsive strokes link together to delineate spontaneous movements of the body.

About Kim Tkatch

Kim Tkatch was born in 1963 in Ukraine.
Kim Tkatch studied Fine Arts at the Kiev Art Institute graduating in 1988.
Although his early works depicted mystical feelings expressed through cryptic patterns and mythical figures,
his style gradually changed following his immigration to Israel in the early nineties. 

Today, his paintings are an enchanting weave of realism that still retain his trademark magical flair. 
People viewing his still-life works say that they appear to come alive with juxtapositions of architecture,
sculpture and Mediterranean vistas that are unique to the artist’s personal life experiences.

There is always a cheeriness and warmth in his interior spaces,
and his exteriors are cherished for their sun-filled radiance and colors that are both rich and saturated.
His images are romantic and intimate and reflect the intimate understanding of the inherent exuberance found in each of his subjects.
Kim uses his ability as an illustrator to offer the viewer a new, 
decorative insight into the beauty of a bouquet of flowers, the Grand Canal of Venice, or female figures lounging on a Mediterranean terrace.
Kim's paintings have been exhibited in Israel, the United States, Russia, Great Britain, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Austria, and Australia.
A prolific artist, his works can be found in private collections worldwide.

About Jacob Wexler

Jacob Wexler was born in 1912 in Latvia.
Wexler studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Hamburg before immigrating to Israel in 1933.
Affected at first by the German Expressionist movement, artists like the famed Rouault had an impact on Wexler’s figurative work and he embraced the Art Informal movement
as his style moved gradually toward the abstract.
From 1948, Wexler became a founding member of the “New Horizons” group, one of Israel’s first leading art movements.
He was the head of the Avni Institute in Tel Aviv where he taught art and design from 1966-1984.
Jacob Wexler’s first one-man exhibition in Tel Aviv in 1948 was followed by many more solo and group exhibitions both in Israel and abroad—
Brazil’s Famous Sao Paulo Art Biennial in 1953 and the Graphics Biennale, held in Tokyo in1960, for example.
Wexler died in 1995. His canvases are known for their linear design.
The works of this important Israeli artist, found in collections around the world, are still highly valued and searched for today.

About Rina Sutzkever

Russian Artist Rina Sutzkever was born in Moscow in 1945, in a home filled with the love of art and culture.
Her father - the poet Abraham Sutzkever was always surrounded with friends who were painters or sculptors, and Marc Chagal - a close friend - illustrated several of his works.
The Sutzkevers immigrated to Israel in 1948, where some years later Abraham won the Israel Awardin literature.
Sutzkever first steps as a professional artist may be traced back to her work with the painter Nahum Gilboa. 
She continued working with painter Moshe Rozenthalis in his studio, where she developed a realistic style faithful to Nature. 
Then came her first group exhibition in Yad-Labanim in Tel Aviv.

About Antoni Gaudi

Antoni Gaudi was born on 25 June 1852 in Camp de Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain. His father and both his grandparents were boilermakers, and as Gaudí himself recounted, he learned his special skill in dealing with three-dimensional space by observing boilermakers at work. Another key fact in the architect's childhood was his delicate health which forced him to spend long periods convalescing at home. There he spent many hours contemplating nature, drawing lessons that he was to apply later in his architecture.

After starting his secondary education at the Escolapian School in Reus, Antoni Gaudí moved to Barcelona in 1869. In the Catalan capital he completed his schooling and after meeting the entrance requirements in 1873 enrolled in the Provincial School of Architecture. Although an indifferent student he showed early indications of genius, opening the way to collaboration with some of his lecturers. After gaining his architect's diploma in January 1878, Gaudí set up his own firm.

Gaudí's rise to be one of the most outstanding architects of the first Modernista generation was meteoric. In the final decades of the nineteenth century when he completed the Güell Palace he was already one of the most famous architects in Barcelona. This work saw the end of Gaudí’s first youthful phase, marked by a personal revision of Gothic and Muslim architecture and including buildings like Casa Vicens, El Capricho, the Güell Estate buildings, the crypt of the Sagrada Familia, the School of the Teresianas and the Episcopal Palace in Astorga. From 1890 onwards Gaudí perfected his understanding of architectural space and the applied arts, giving his work unique and unsuspected qualities that stood out from the other Modernist architecture of his day.

In 1914 he abandoned all other work to concentrate on the Sagrada Familia. Aware that he would not live to see it completed, he did his best to leave it at an advanced stage for coming generations. In fact, Gaudí was only to see one of its towers in its final form. On 10 June 1926 the architect died from injuries suffered after being run over by a tram. Two days later he was buried at the Sagrada Familia.

About Esther Peretz Arad

Esther Peretz Arad was Born in Bulgaria and came to Israel as a child.  In 1937 she began her studies painting with the late  Aharon Avni.  Since 1959 she has had many one-man shows in Israel.  The select group exhibitions include the  1960 roving exhibition in the US under the patronage of the Foreign Ministry and the Tel-Aviv Museum ; 1966, Hermitage Museum, Leningrad. She received the Dizengoff Prize in 1956.  In addition to the drawings that characterize her work, she has worked in every possible medium applicable to the fine arts: oil, lithography, etching, chalk, watercolor, collage, and even sculpture, which she studied with the late Yitzhak Danziger.  She works in the figurative style and draws her inspiration from nature focusing primarily on the quality of line, the splash, the flow, and the composition.  She is a member of the Israel Painters and Sculptors Association.

About Suly Wolff

Suly Burnstein Wolff was born in 1957 in Brazil and immigrated to Israel in 1976.
Wolff's paintings are inspired by personal images extracted from her private world.
A fascinating associative world that leads the viewer to imaginary scenes and kaleidoscopic experiences appealing to intellect and emotions alike.
Wolff does not settle for a single style in her artistic practice, the most conspicuous of her recent series is that of landscape paintings alluding to ideal, utopian natural landscapes embedded with houses and cityscapes.
Wolff creates a grid of quadrangular color surfaces, patterns of an urban landscape extending on a hilltop, a series that ranges between abstract images and semi-realistic textural forms.
Another striking series in terms of coloration spans her flower paintings, the flowers are portrayed in stylized arrangements, and some of them seem to fulfill an anthropomorphic function.
These are not conventional flower renditions, and their variety or belonging to authentic flower species is clearly insignificant.
The flowers address memories associated with colors and convey feelings to the viewer's heart.
Suly Wolff furnishes her viewers with a colorful, somewhat mystical experience through vital paintings that shed light on her persona as a confident, independent artist.

Education
1974-1976 Teachers Seminar, Sao Paolo.
1977-1979 Seminar Hakibbutzim, Tel Aviv.
2000 -- Painting with painter Ilana Bar-David
1998 -- Drawing instructions with sculpture Yael Bareket Sketching, aquarelle and acrylic painting.
Association of painting and sculptures in Tel-Aviv with painter Shaike Granot.
1998-1999 Various combined technique sketching and oil on canvas with painter Noga Meierhof,
                     Center for Arts, Tel Aviv. Sketching an oil canvas with painter Miri Neshri.
1981-1983 Architecture and interior design, Ort.
1980-1981 Jewelry design, Tel Aviv.
1976 Sketching in charcoal and oil painting with painter Lev Steinman, Tel-Aviv.
1969 Painting and sketching, Sao Paolo.

About Albert Goldman

Albert Goldman was born in 1922 in Egypt. 
Goldman showed an early childhood talent for drawing and painting. 
In 1940 he obtained a diploma of commerce and opted for a career in the hospitality industry,
following in the footsteps of his parents who operated the Majestic Palace Hotel in Alexandria.
He moved to Cairo in 1942 to study Swiss Hotel Management at Egyptian Hotels Limited, the largest hotel company in the Middle East at the time. 
By 1947 he was the manager of the Luxor Hotel.
In 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence, he was brutally attacked by a mob during an air raid by Israeli planes, 
accused of being a Zionist signaling to the enemy. He miraculously survived 12 stab wounds to the back.
In March 1950 he married Lucette Blumenthal and they have been married to this day.
At the time, they both knew their days in Egypt were numbered.
On September 5, 1951 the couple disembarked onto the shores of Israel aboard the 'Artza'.

Although he has been painting since childhood and studied art in Alexandria by Italian and Greek masters at the 'Atelier' School,
his art coexisted with his Hotel responsibilities all the way to 1980. 
His hospitality career in Israel blossomed as a Hotel Manager, Consultant for new hotels,
Organizer of the International Culinary Congress in Jerusalem,
Catering advisor for Special Banquets on behalf of Israeli Presidents Yitzchak Ben Zvi and Zalman Shazar and President of the Geneva International Hotel Association in Jerusalem.

In the meantime he still painted and studied art in the 50s, 60s and 70s. 
He studied under Avraham Yaskiel and Meyerovitch in Haifa and Moshe Propes in Tel-Aviv.
It was only in 1980 that he finally gave up his hotel career and focused exclusively on his art. 

He has participated in many exhibitions in Jerusalem, Paris, New York, Tel Aviv and South Africa. 
His works are in the collection of notable figures such as the late Pope Paul IV and the late Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia;
Former presidents of Israel Itzhak Ben Zvi, Zalman Shazar, Itzhak Navon, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, both Presidents of the Arab Republic of Egypt. 

About Boris Shapiro

Boris Shapiro was born in 1968 in Ukraine.He completed his studies in 1985 at the Luvov Fine Art School where he specialized in antique restoration.Upon his release from the army in 1987 he began working in his field, which greatly influenced the progress of his career.Following his immigration to Israel in 1991, he enrolled in the Graphic Department of the Visual Arts College in Beer Sheva.After experimenting with different media and style, Boris began developing his artistic persona based upon the 16th-17th century Small Dutch School of the likes of Pieter Bruegel.Having come from the non-humorous, non-individualistic, former Soviet Union, Boris expresses the humor, irony, and simplicity of life. His portraits are whimsical; the colors are usually earth tones, symbolizing the natural colors and events of everyday life.

About Dror Auslander

Dror Auslander was born in 1972 in Israel.
Dror Auslander an art teacher and a painter.
Painting in oil color on "ready-mades" as wood, textile fabrics. 
Currently Dror lives in Kiryat Bialik, Israel.

Studies
1998 B.Ed., The Art Institute, Oranim College, Tivon, Israel

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2004   "Oil on Readymade," Tova Osman Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
2006   "It's All Ready-Made, It's Already Made," Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra Art Gallery, Israel 
            "The Return of the Plywood," Tova Osman Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
2007   "Bread–Work," Janco-Dada Museum, Ein Hod, Israel
2008   "Worldly Seat," The Artists House, Tel Aviv 


Scholarships and Awards
2009   Haifa Arts Foundation Grant for Young Artists Collections
            Bank Leumi Collection, Israel
            Benno Kalev Collection, Israel
            Raffi Lavie Collection, Israel
            Oded Shatil Collection, Israel
            Private collections

About Yaacov Agam

Yaacov Agam was born in 1928 in Israel.
Agam studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, and in Switzerland at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule and the Zurich University. 
Agam arrived to Paris in 1951 and in 1953 held his first one man exhibition in the Gallery Graven with great success. 
This exhibition consisted totally of kinetic, movable and transformable paintings, which actually was the first one-man show in art history exclusively devoted to kinetic art.
In 1955 he established himself as one of the leading pioneers of kinetic art at the Le Mouvement exhibition at the Gallery Denise René. 
A passionate experimenter, Agam deals with 4 dimensions, simultaneity and time in the visual, plastic arts, and has extended his experiments to application in the fields of literature, music and art theory.

About Marina Grigoryan

Marina Grigoryan was born in 1963 in Russia.
Grigoryan attended art school from 1974 to 1978 before enrolling at the Art Academy in 1978 to study easel painting under the guidance of Professor Nogmat Khakimov,
and Lyubov Kuzina, senior lecturer in the Drawing and Composition Department.
Upon her graduation in 1982, Grigoryan began her career as an artist by embarking on an ambitious ten year period of nearly non-stop participation in group and individual shows where she continued to honor her unique artistic talents. 
Her exposure to variety of experiences and people culminated in a desire to experience a complete “life makeover“, which she realized by immigrating to Israel in 1994.
Grigoriyan’s paintings glow with an infusion of light and an amazing use of color that blend together to create an ambiance of almost fairy-like magic. "Soothing“, "exciting“,
 "mysterious“, "vibrant“, and "alive“ are just some of the words that have been used to describe the artist’s work.
Today, Grigoryan has added sculpture and ceramics to her repertoire and continues to perform as a professional artist.  She has seen her work exhibited in Israel, America and Europe.

About Rene Lalique

Rene Lalique was born in the 19th century, pre-industrialized Europe. It was a time before light bulbs, and telephones, before automobiles and washing machines and electricity. But by the time of his death in 1945 at the dawn of the atomic age, he would have completed two careers spanning two different centuries. In 1900 at the age of 40, he was the most celebrated jeweler in the world and an art nouveau artist and designer of magnificent proportions. But by 1925 at the height of the art deco era he was the most celebrated glassmaker in the world. In between Lalique would leave his contemporaries behind as he turned from creating unique jewelry and objects d'art, to the mass production of innovative and usable art glass. He brought glass into the home of everyday people where it had never been before, and he worked out the industrial techniques to mass produce his useful art glass objects on a scale and cost to complement the spreading industrial revolution and resulting worldwide appetite for his products.

Lalique is remembered for his jewelry and his glass. But his greatest accomplishments were born in his recognition of the changing world in which he lived. His life spanned the entire period from the Civil War to World War II and as his world changed, so did Lalique. His amazing turn of careers and fields put him in the forefront of the new mass production. He was a jeweler, he was a glassmaker, he was an artist. But his great accomplishment was to combine those talents with foresight and innovation to not just serve markets, but to create them. In the process, Lalique would become a world class industrialist with an industrial ability on par with any other of his rich talents and achievements.

About Nirit Levav

Nirit Levav is a designer and a multidisciplinary artist, who deals with the affinity between art and recycling.
In 1988, after she had graduated from Parsons School of Design, she started her path as a fashion designer, characterized with a distinguish utterance and an innovative style.

Over the years, alongside a successful career as an established fashion designer focusing on bridal and evening gowns, she continued to explore and experiment with different materials, and was practicing skills of jewelry-making, metalworking, pottery, ceramics, and more.
In 2010 Levav had decided to move on from fashion and devoted herself to art.
Her uniqueness is in the materials she chooses to create with and the non-conventional manners she works. She does not limit herself to traditional techniques, or conventional materials, but is constantly challenging herself and the matter by using techniques she develops herself.
At times her inspiration comes from wanting to create something specific, and other times it is the exploring of the matter which brings to the final outcome, without prior planning.
In the last few years, Lavav is working mainly with recycled materials she collects: Bicycle chains, motorcycle pistons, keys, light bulbs, watches, and more, from which she creates sculptures and outdoors large scale sculptures.

“First of all I collect different materials, mainly the kind people don’t want anymore. For them it is garbage and for me – a treasure..
I love the initial rough material, and it is inspiring for me to create delicate and refined things out of it. The contrast between the rough look of the material and the final refined outcome makes me exited..” (N.L 2015)

She inherited the love for reused materials from her mother, an arts and crafts teacher, and from her father, which was one of the leading set designers in Israel, and in his workshop nothing was thrown out to waste.
She says her engagement with recycling crosses the borders of her artistic work to other areas in her life.
About her artistic path and the nonconventional choices which characterize her work she says:
“I want to inspire people to believe that anything is possible, that anyone can step out of the strict frames of the fixed mind. That you could and you should bring something new, each and one of us in its own field. And mainly I want to make people happy, to surprise those who look at my work and inspire them to smile.”
Nirit Levav’s works were displayed in shows in the U.S.A, Europe and the far east, and are included in private art collections.

About Ilana Goor

Ilana Goor is an individualistic, autodidactic, intuitive and multifaceted artist. As an artist who knows no boundaries and whose art transcends any conventions, her creations are a blend of vitality and obsession, functional simplicity alongside expressive complexity bordering on surrealism. Her sources of inspiration are neither time nor place-dependent. They create a personal statement, a journey replete with meaning and they succeed in touching and moving people the world over.

Goor was born in Tiberias to an educated and distinguished family of highly respected doctors and artists. She never studied art or design in any formal setting. She developed her artistic techniques on her own from an early age, when she used various parts to create small statues. She is considered to be an international multidisciplinary artist. Her works encompass sculptures,furniture, judaica, lighting fixtures, jewelry and fashion items which are displayed in well known galleries worldwide and are distinguished by their powerful, dominant presence.

She first came to the United States in her 20s and captured the hearts of the locals with her large-buckle belts for men which paved her artistic path in North America.  As a result, Goor has been able to launch her impressive talents and has dedicated her main efforts to industry. Goor's first one-woman exhibition was held in 1972 at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles. Since then, her works of art have been exhibited in numerous museums both in Israel and abroad, e.g. the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Museum of 20th Century Art in Vienna, and more.

One of the high points in Goor's career in the field of design was in 1986 when she won the prestigious Peres Roscoe Design prize.  Her signature, which is identified in all her work  can also be seen in a number of locations in Israel, such as the moving sculpture "Never Again" which is on display at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the "Woman in the Wind" sculpture that is close to the Charles Clore park in Tel Aviv.

About Uri Dushy

Over the past decades Uri Dushy has been investigating the origins of art. In his personal, non-compromising way, he insists upon joining and creating within artistic genres unprecedented to him, provocatively challenging, mastering and adopting technical professional production processes. There is a considerable amount of daring – at times bordering on the naive – in the manner by which Uri Dushy copes with the nearly impossible challenges he undertakes. Perhaps in this course of his lies the key to understanding his  success in the field of Israeli public art and the international exhibition establishments frequented by his works over the last decades.

Genuine and profound love of the creation process along with true inspiration from both classic and current artwork characterize Uri Dushy's works. Uri Dushy appreciates beauty and aesthetics, believing that it is his professional responsibility to contribute to their existence in the world. He creates a dialogue with his audience, while capturing them and enabling them to take part in the creative experience.

Uri Dushy’s sculptures consist of five main series, presented in this site along with his photo collage and paintings works. The first and main series includes the public sculptures permanently positioned across cities and parks in Israel. Uri Dushy’s work does not confine itself to the limits of his private studio, but rather exits into the public realm – into open sites frequented by bypassers and members of the community who are not necessarily familiar with museums and galleries.

His magnificent public art works are colorful, positive, understandable and intended for the eyes of all people, thus contributing to their positive outlook. It can be said that the works reflect a positive inspiration sent from the artist to his audience, which returns the positive energy that contributes to the continuity of the artist’s creation.

Projects that included the urban landscape sculptures took place in over a dozen cities across Israel, among which are Ashkelon, Holon, Petach-Tikva, Jerusalem, Rishon Le Zion, Ra'anana and more. 

The second series is that of the unique wall sculptures consisting of two- dimensional clusters of figures in animated order that creates an impressive movement.The animation-like movement, which advances along the sculpture's space, presents a narrative image situated in different urban environments.

The third series includes the small sized interior metal sculptures. Each figure is represented as a two-dimensional silhouette situated in its own sculptural environment, a base of stone or a variety of other materials, upon which it plays out its role in the narrative.

The three dimensional bronze sculptures make up the fourth series. The added dimension  enriches the figures with nuances which don’t exist in the two-dimensional works. There is an element of freshness in the altered use he makes of the daily and realistic symbols he chooses.

The virtual sculpture project, "Status", presents the fifth series which includes 2 meter high mixed media figures that expose their extreme emotional states while conducting a dialogue with classical sculpting theories.

Uri Dushy’s photo collage works have created a new artistic language. Combining details of various segments of urban reality within the framework of one picture enables to refer to specific places and events with which Dushy becomes acquainted.

Parallel to his Israeli career, Uri Dushy exhibited in one-man exhibitions around the world and participated in numerous group exhibitions and international art projects.