Yigal Ozeri | Reality Check

YIGAL OZERI | REALITY CHECK
Curator: Shear Ozeri

The candid imagery from Yigal Ozeri’s new series Reality Check is invigorated with honesty. Representing a significant evolution in the artist’s practice – one of the most dramatic shifts in his approach to painting thus far. Stepping away from his signature motif of distinctive young women in lush natural landscapes and focusing on capturing the chaotic pulse of New York City’s urban terrain.

A New Yorker himself, Ozeri has developed an eye for the unconventional moments of beauty that city dwellers have long embraced. The series features the grittier aspects of New York – the meat markets of Chinatown, the dilapidated subway, and the vacant lots of Red Hook – as well as the more traditionally beloved locales – Washington Square Park and Dumbo. It is in these offbeat settings that Ozeri’s work begins to capture a more 21st-century sensibility.

The rhythm of the city translates into a streaming movement across each canvas, interrupted by chance encounters that Ozeri has chosen to focus on. Targeting the unexpected moments, rather than censoring them. Strangers have integrated their way into his compositions, exemplifying the true character of New York. Ozeri presents the city he’s called home for 30 years through the elements that captivate him. Avoiding the glamour, he seeks to expose the truth of what New Yorkers call habitual. His imagery and compositions flirt with the perimeters of contemporary street photography.

In Ozeri’s new exhibition titled Reality Check, the artist has chosen to not only explore the city that shaped his adult career but also the city that raised him. Continuing the shift in his new creative direction Ozeri felt it was finally time to pay homage to Tel-Aviv. Recently turning 60 Ozeri has had time to methodically experience and examine the structure and effects the ever-booming city has had on him both as an artist and as a person. His innate ability to connect, his undeniable determination, and his need for ever-changing cultural movement all stem from Tel Aviv.

Connecting the two cities in the exhibition was a seemingly smooth evolution. Just as transitioning his life from Tel-Aviv to New York was. Both embody the chaotic rhythm and fluctuation that allows millions to be drawn to them. Ozeri wanted people of both cities to identify and connect with his subject matter. To evoke emotion and insight as to what it means to be from Tel-Aviv. Each painting creates a meditative state between the imagery and the viewer, stimulating nostalgic reactions.

This distinctive new series views and connects Ozeri’s vibrant cities as ever- changing sources of inspiration in a significant change of aesthetic that makes his new work feel that much more authentic and dynamic.