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.