Nationality Israeli Name Guy Ben-Ari | Role Painter Books Out of Sight | |
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Born 1984 Tel Aviv, Israel Education 2011, MFA, Columbia University's School of the Arts, New York; 2008, Exchange Program for Merit Students, Painting Department, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London;
2005-9, BFA, with honors, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Jerusalem Awards 2014, SIP Award, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY;
2011, Artis Project Grant, Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, New York, NY;
2009, Lauren and Mitchell Presser Award for Excellence in Painting, Jerusalem, Israel Known for Painting, Drawing, Printmaking | ||
Guy Ben-Ari (born 1984 in Tel Aviv, Israel) is an Israeli painter currently living and working in New York City.
Biography
Ben-Ari received his MFA from Columbia University's School of the Arts in 2011, and his BFA with honors from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem in 2009, where he received the Presser Award for Excellence in Painting. In 2008, Ben-Ari was selected for the Exchange Program for Merit Students to study Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.
Ben-Ari's body of work focuses on the connection between Psychoanalytic theory, Semiotics and the medium of painting. Following the Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s notion that 'The word kills the thing' by fixing its meaning, he uses an illustrative approach to examine the way metaphors, when taken literally, become dysfunctional. Ben-Ari is interested in the implications of using painting, a medium that rejects literal interpretation, to analyze concepts that reject visual interpretation. Ben-Ari's recent work uses painting as a framework to study elements of post-structuralism and psychoanalytic theory. Much of his work originates in jokes or illustrations of related concepts and situations, as he attempts to employ a literal strategy in an image, without collapsing into a mere illustration.
Ben-Ari is a current artist-in-residence at Triangle Arts in Brooklyn, New York. He is a recent artist-in-residence at the Lower East Side Printshop and was a SIP Award recipient from the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. Ben-Ari also worked as an Artist-in-Residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency and at the NARS Foundation, New York.
His solo exhibition was held at Scaramouche gallery in Manhattan, New York. Previous solo exhibitions of Ben-Ari's work were held at Vox Populi in Philadelphia, and Hamidrasha Gallery in Tel Aviv. His work has been featured in group exhibitions in New York City at 6–8 Months Project Space, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, NADA Art Fair with Artis, Fisher Landau Center for Art, and SculptureCenter.