The new exhibition by Israeli artist Zamir Shatz on Mozambique will be inaugurated on January 16th at the Rosenfeld Gallery in Tel Aviv. Two sets of works will be presented: one consisting of around fifty oil paintings about Mozambique and the other featuring approximately 300 drawings compiled into a book. These drawings were created between 2013 and 2015 as a sort of journal depicting daily life and the intimacy of domestic space alongside political events in Israel, including two electoral campaigns, a wave of serious attacks, and Operation "Tzuk Eitan" in Gaza in 2014.
The artist posted the drawings daily, digitized on his Facebook account, accompanied by short texts, sometimes about the drawings themselves or in separate posts. All of his drawings will also be projected on the gallery walls.
In 2023, Zamir Shatz traveled to Africa to accompany a friend to Mozambique. Upon his return, Zamir painted the work Kima and I Dream of Africa, inspired by his journey. The pastel colors and surreal, fantastic atmosphere sharply contrast with the living conditions and political situation Shatz encountered during his trip: a bloody civil war, refugee camps throughout the country, and slums surrounded by military bases.
A green and fertile Mozambique, devastated by an ongoing state of war with its citizens enduring continuous suffering. Kima and I Dream of Africa was the starting point for a series of oil paintings created over the past two years, which took a different turn after the October 7 massacre and the ongoing war in Israel.
In Zamir’s works, rows of small houses, tents, plowed fields, ruined ships, water tanks, and flocks of birds can be seen. A horizon line often crosses his paintings, defining and separating the earth from the sky. In some works, he emphasizes exotic, endangered animals, symbolizing the sense of disaster that overwhelmed him during his visit to the African continent and the ongoing catastrophe in the Middle East
Zamir Shatz was born in 1969 in Kibbutz Kinneret. He holds a master's degree from Bezalel (2012) and a bachelor's degree from Camera Obscura in partnership with the Midrash for Art (1999). He has exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum, Haifa Museum of Art, Ein Harod Museum, and the Nachum Gutman Museum, among others.
The exhibition will take place from January 16 to February 22 at the Rosenfeld Gallery, 1 Hamifal Street, Tel Aviv.
Caroline Haïat
Comments