'I am obsessed with edges, both in painting as with people' says Guy Yanai, the Israeli painter who plays obsessively with simplified forms, using vibrant colours and minimising depth.
Structured in meticulously layered horizontal rectangular blocks or stripes, his linearly style that characterises his works, has become instantly famous.
Influenced in content and colour palette by modern cinema and a variety of notable artists of the 20th century as Henri Matisse, David Hockney or Philip Guston, Yanai borrows, appropriates easily from and is in awe and even confused (all simultaneously) by European visual culture and its rich heritage.
On the edge of figuration and abstraction, Yanai accomplishes to evoke nowhereness and timelessness in the portrayal of his subjects, even if the latter are extremely common; depicting plants, living rooms, suburban architecture or sailing boats. These negate an easy reading and exemplify Yanai’s thoughts around humanity’s core instincts, the European and Mediterranean Landscape identity, personal identity in relation to the physical environment, conscious and unconscious ideas, preferences, beliefs, values, feelings and behavioural tendencies.
Highly topical subjects that are enhanced by his technique of applying vibrant horizontal stripes that remind our current digital age of screens. The timelessness of oil painting technique however underlines the century old problems that have always characterised Europe or the notion of Europe.
Guy Yanai was born in 1977 Haifa, Israel and lives and works in Tel Aviv. He grew up in Boston and attended Parsons The New School for Design, The New York Studio School (both New York), Pont Aven School of Art, Pont-Aven, France, and received a BFA in 2000 from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. He has exhibited internationally in a number of institutions and galleries and has received special grants.
Nominated by Art Net as one of the 50 most exciting artists in Europe today, Yanai has exhibited in a number of solo and group shows worldwide.
Solo shows include ‘Ordinary Things’, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel (2015); ‘Battle, Therapy, Living Room’, The Velan Center for Contemporary Art, Turin (2013); and solo shows at Alon Segev Gallery, Tel Aviv. In 2018 the MGM Nomad Hotel in Las Vegas (owned by the Sydell Group) commissioned artist Guy Yanai and David Hockney, for making large works to be presented together. As Hockney, Yanai plays with the strength of extremely common subjects, depicting plants, living rooms, suburban life, using
His work has also been exhibited by the Nassima/Landau Foundation, Tel Aviv; The Painting Center, New York and the Ashdod Museum of Art, Ashdod. In 2021 his work will be included in the upcoming exhibition at the Xiao Museum in RiZhao, China and in the exhibition at the Yvon Lambert Collection in Avignon, France. From July 10 - October 17, 2021 his work is part of the exhibition ‘Un Goût de Vacances’ at Centre d’Art Contemporain of Meymac, South of France. Yanai lives and works between Tel-Aviv, Israel and Marseilles, France.
Museum Collection (selection)
Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel
Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv. Israel
Public collection
Holtz Collection, New York
Vente-Privée, Paris
Ekard Collection, Wassenaar
Prometheus, Amsterdam
Van den Weghe, Zulte
Doeksen Consultancy, Wassenaar
Anita Zabludowicz collection, London.