Itay Matan

Itay Matan (b. 1995, Jerusalem, lives and works in Tel Aviv) is an artist who creates paintings that deal with the construction and fragmentation of fictional spaces through the use of eclectic imagery. The paintings are raising questions of identity and belonging, and exist in a liminal space whose location and time are unclear. The symbolically rich microcosmoses he creates operate according to internal logic and laws, in which objects, textures, and different approaches of representation are used. Through alienation and the creation of anomalous links and connections, Matan seeks to facilitate a state of contemplation on the ability of those images to function as representatives of culture and to create a discourse about the values that are being reflected from them. The paintings deal with the broad discussion of representation in the 21st century and particularly that of the medium of painting and its historical role in the contemporary economy of images.

Matan graduated with a BFA from the art department at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (2020). Since he completed his studies, Matan has exhibited in many group exhibitions, including Turning Off the Lights at the art department at Bezalel Academy (2022), Material Girl at Koresh 14 gallery in Jerusalem (2022), Time Space at the A.D. Rothschild in Tel Aviv (2022), The Artists’ Greenhouse at Freshpaint art fair (2021), Have You Ever Seen the Sea Fight the Wind of Night? at Binyamin Gallery in Tel Aviv (2021), and in Opening Point at the Koresh 14 Gallery in Jerusalem (2020). Matan won the Chaim Schiff Prize for Figurative-Realistic Painting from the art department at Bezalel Academy for two consecutive years, in 2019-2020. In 2021 he took part in the BarburBNB residency program of Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem. His works are in private collections in Israel and abroad.