Michal Na’aman was born in 1951 in Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. She grew up in nearby Kibbutz Kineret. Na’aman studied art at Hamidrasha Art School and holds B.A. in literature and art history from Tel Aviv University. In 1980, she completed three years of study at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her first exhibition was in 1972, at Gallery 201 in Tel Aviv. Among her many awards, Na’aman can count the Sandberg Prize, the Pundak Award, and the Israel Prize, received in 2014. “Professor Na’aman,” wrote the Israels Prize Committee, “is a revolutionary figure in the field of post-conceptual art.”
Na’aman’s work is characterized by juxtaposing visual images with, mostly, short Hebrew texts. The harmony of squares featured in many of her works is created by layers of masking tape, sometimes squeezing out the paint from previous layers, thus creating a bleeding or weeping effect. Sometimes, peeling off the masking tape removes the paint altogether, leaving white squares or rectangles.
Her ability to capture linguistic nuances, deconstruct and give...
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