Galería ATC is pleased to announce the first exhibition in the Canary Islands by the Israeli artist Alona Harpaz. The exhibition, titled Coming Back to Be a Monkey, consists of ten large and medium format paintings, created over the last two years, that feature botanical elements, figures, and animals.
Harpaz's canvases capture the renewed interest in figurative painting, which has been unfolding over the past two decades. The artist's first solo exhibition in 2002 at the Sommer Contemporary Art Gallery in Tel Aviv foreshadowed her current paintings. When Richard Prince first saw Harpaz's work at Art Basel Miami Beach some years later, he wrote in ArtReview that the artist's paintings reminded him of "Matisse, meets Polke meets punk. Maybe there was some Kippenberg in there but I think mostly I liked the way the paint was poured and lightly brushed..." Indeed, one can detect subtle references throughout her works. The structure of many of her compositions is reminiscent of Art Nouveau designs; splashes of colorful make-up, daubed on faces, imbues the canvas with a glam aesthetic; and naturalistic elements hints at mischief, restraint, and spiritual symbolism.
Her colors, which she applies with acrylic, aerosol and industrial paints on canvas, are striking due to their intensity and fluorescence. She combines them in an unusual way, applying them without any modulation, thus giving shape to flat surfaces. The linear and the painterly often coexist, and the artist wanders between figuration and abstraction. The painting's narrative is very personal, centered on a single female figure, who is always the main element of the composition-a depiction of self-possessed femininity that reacts to Gauguin's hyper-masculine and problematic exotic vision of women. She often incorporates floral motifs, and their arrangement on the canvas creates a blended backdrop that alludes to the undulating lines characteristic of European Art Nouveau and the geometric patterns of Asian mandalas. The artist also paints wild animals, often alongside a woman, but sometimes as the sole subject. The wolf, the fawn, the owl, and the monkey-which in Hindu mythology symbolizes Hanuman, a god of power and strength-can all be found populating her scenes. In Coming Back to Be a Monkey, Harpaz proves that she is more fearless than precious, willing to face the canvas in an unexpected way-and able to leave something a bit undone; it's a calculated roughness for the next round when she can return to it with a renewed boldness.
Alona Harpaz was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1971. Her father was born on a Kibbutz and her Romanian mother was a ballet dancer. She lives and works in Berlin. Her work is in international collections, both private and institutional: Israel Museum Collection, Richard Prince Collection, Anita & Poju Zabludowicz Collection, Wendy Fisher Collection, Barbara Gladstone Collection, Chadra Collection, Michael L. Hittleman Collection, and Sami & Anette Bollag Collection. She studied at The Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, and at the International Center of Photography in New York. Her work has been exhibited at Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv; Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York; Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Alessandro de March Gallery, Milan; Ramat Gan Museum, Israel; Tel Aviv Museum; Israel Museum, Tel Aviv; Gropius Bau Museum, Berlin; and Schau Fenster Gallery, Berlin, among others.
