Naomi
Mendel
Naomi Mendel (b. 1981, Jerusalem) lives and works in Tel Aviv. Mendel is a graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (2006), and also studied at the Utrecht University of the Arts (HKU) in the Netherlands (2005). She holds an MFA from Haifa University (2023).
Mendel has held solo exhibitions at the Dana Gallery in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai (2009), the Heder Gallery of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv (2010), the Art Ventures Gallery, California (2019), and the Hanina Gallery in Tel Aviv, (2024). She has participated in group exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including the UDK Gallery, Berlin (2010), Haifa Museum (2018), Eretz Israel Museum (2024), Feinberg Projects Gallery, Tel Aviv (2013), and the Israeli Fresh Paint art fair, in which she participated several times and was named the Curators’ Choice (2007-2010).
Mendel has been awarded many scholarships, including from the Kunststiftung Schües Art Foundation in Hamburg during her MFA studies, from the Rabinovich Foundation, and an “Artist-Teacher Grant” from the Israel Ministry of Culture for teaching art in a boarding school in Israel’s periphery (2016, 2017, 2018). She has participated in the Artist Career Development Program offered by Artis, Artport & Asylum Arts (2016), and in an artist residency at the Art Ventures Gallery in San Francisco (2019).
Mendel’s works are included in collections in Israel and worldwide, including the Haifa Museum of Art, the Kunststiftung Schües Art Foundation, Hamburg, the Igal Ahuvi Collection, the Dubi Schiff Collection, the Poalim Bank Collection, and the Hershman Collection in San Francisco, California.
In recent years, I have focused on paintings of vegetation and tangles. I wanted to capture a moment in a hiding spot where the gaze extends from the thicket towards a lighted, outdoor area. I am interested in the point of view in which the painting becomes a place of refuge, there is no single point of focus, and perhaps the point of view is not human, but of an animal passing through the thicket.
The choice of “hiding scenes” allowed me to feel both physical and pictorial protection; to explore a less didactic and tight painting style, to lay down color without beautification, following a mood and a momentary handprint, to focus on using my instincts and lowering my guards – these works were made with no preparatory sketching. I am interested in dealing with materiality, that is, dealing with the archeology of layers, scraping, roughness, loading, engraving, exposure, multiplication and formal overload. All of these produce coincidences and the emergence of forms from the subconscious.
More by Naomi Mendel
$6,500.00
Elephant Ear with a Duck
$4,500.00
Elephant Ear on Wood
$3,500.00
Pot no.12
Naomi Mendel (b. 1981, Jerusalem) lives and works in Tel Aviv. Mendel is a graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (2006), and also studied at the Utrecht University of the Arts (HKU) in the Netherlands (2005). She holds an MFA from Haifa University (2023).
Mendel has held solo exhibitions at the Dana Gallery in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai (2009), the Heder Gallery of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv (2010), the Art Ventures Gallery, California (2019), and the Hanina Gallery in Tel Aviv, (2024). She has participated in group exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including the UDK Gallery, Berlin (2010), Haifa Museum (2018), Eretz Israel Museum (2024), Feinberg Projects Gallery, Tel Aviv (2013), and the Israeli Fresh Paint art fair, in which she participated several times and was named the Curators’ Choice (2007-2010).
Mendel has been awarded many scholarships, including from the Kunststiftung Schües Art Foundation in Hamburg during her MFA studies, from the Rabinovich Foundation, and an “Artist-Teacher Grant” from the Israel Ministry of Culture for teaching art in a boarding school in Israel’s periphery (2016, 2017, 2018). She has participated in the Artist Career Development Program offered by Artis, Artport & Asylum Arts (2016), and in an artist residency at the Art Ventures Gallery in San Francisco (2019).
Mendel’s works are included in collections in Israel and worldwide, including the Haifa Museum of Art, the Kunststiftung Schües Art Foundation, Hamburg, the Igal Ahuvi Collection, the Dubi Schiff Collection, the Poalim Bank Collection, and the Hershman Collection in San Francisco, California.