• Source: Shai Azoulay

Shai Azoulay (Hebrew: שי אזולאי‎) (born in 1971) is an Israeli painter. Azoulay lives and works in Jerusalem and is a faculty member of the Fine Art Department of The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.




Biography


Azoulay was born in 1971 in Kiryat Shmona. His family moved to Arad when he was a child. After his army service, he traveled to the Far East, where he began to paint. He began his art studies at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in the mid-1990s and graduated in 2000 with a BFA degree and in 2007 with an MFA degree.
Azoulay has exhibited both in Israel and worldwide including Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2011), ARATANIURANO Gallery, Tokyo (2013), Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (2018), The Israel Museum Jerusalem (2019) as well as group exhibitions in New York, London, Paris, Berlin and Rome. His works are included in public and private collections including The Israel Museum, The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Ashdod Museum of Art, Bank Hapoalim, Israel Discount Bank, and Bank Leumi.
Azoulay is a faculty member of the Fine Art Department of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (“Oman" Haredi Extension)
Among the awards that he has received are Legacy Heritage Fund Prize for a Young Artist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (2007), The Osnat Mozes Prize for Painting for a Young Artist, The Artists House, Jerusalem (2007), Creative Encouragement Award, Ministry of Culture and Sport (2011), Ministry of Culture Award (2018) and The Israeli Lottery 'Landau Prize' for arts and science (2020)
Azoulay lives and works in Jerusalem. He is married to Daniella Azoualy, a ceramic artist. Together they have six children. His brother is the actor Golan Azoulay.




Work


In their recommendation to reward Azoulay with the prize for a young artist, the members of the Osnat Mozes committee commented that they "...were deeply impressed by Azoulay’s command of painterly skills, his knowledge of the history of painting, and of the contemporary critical discourse." They further noted: "In his paintings, Shai Azoulay moves along a narrow thread stretched between historical narrative and intimate-human stories. With a seemingly gentle and ironic touch he deconstructs modernist and national mythologies, while reconstructing from them refreshing pictures lacking pretension which reveal as if for the first time the possibility of creating a dynamic world.
In her essay for Azoulay's exhibition "Closer to the Sun", Michal Shachani Yacobi states "The relationship between the painting and Hasidism, or between painting and tradition and faith, occupies Azoulay in his works. He uses them to reexamine concepts, rabbinical homilies, and stories borrowed from the worlds of Torah and Jewish mysticism."
Azoulay's has a spanish mother and a moroccan father. When Azoulay was 8 years old, the family moved from Kiryat Shmona to Arad, located in the Negev desert. He later depicted these landscapes in his works. The desert is "so active, but under the surface," he says; it is "working from the quiet."
Upon completion of his requisite three-year army service, Azoulay traveled across Asia, being inspired to become an artist while in Thailand. He went on to attend Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Around the time of his graduation with an MFA in 2007, he began to become more religiously observant. Being religiously observant is unusual in the Israeli art scene, of which he is a leading figure.
Azoulay is a follower of the 19th century Jewish mystic, teacher, and storyteller, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a key influencer in the development of Breslov Hasidic Judaism.




Exhibitions






= Select solo exhibitions

=
Shai Azoulay – Outpost, Jerusalem Artists House, 25 October – 7 December 2003
Shai Azoulay, Jerusalem Artists House, 13 October – 24 November 2007
A Whole Heart is a Broken Heart, Sotheby's, Tel Aviv, 17 May –7 June 2012
Guided Imagery, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv ,20 March – 15 May 2014
Dos, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, 14 April – 21 May 2016
Shortcuts, Meislin Projects, NY, USA, 10 November 2016 – 27 January 2017
Shai Azoulay: A Dwelling Down Below, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, 24 February – 3 June 2018
Shai Azoulay: Kitzur Schulchan Aruch, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, 6 September – 2 November 2019




= Group exhibitions

=
Group Exhibition, Art Cube, The Artists' Studio, Jerusalem, December 2003
Lights, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2005
Group Exhibition, Art Cube, The Artists' Studio, Jerusalem, 5–19 May 2006
The Other Sea, Artists' House, Jerusalem, 21 April- 2 June 2007
Salame, Graduate Show 007, Bezalel Gallery, Tel Aviv, 31 May- 30 June 2007
Young Israeli Art: Recipients of the Legacy Fund Prize, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2007
Mermaid, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, 17 July- 23 August 2008
Group Exhibition, Artist Studios, Jerusalem, 11 September - 28 November 2008
Constellation: Israeli Contemporary Art, Ermanno Tedeschi Gallery, Turin, Italy, 17 February - 24 March 2009
Women becomes tree, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, 27 May - 27 June 2009 Artists: Gottlieb Azoulay, Daniella | Azoulay, Shai
1 + 1, Art Center - Art Academy, Jerusalem, 5 September- 1 October 2009 Artists: Azoulay, Shai | Gottlieb Azoulay, Daniella
With this Ring - Wedding Ceremonies in Contemporary Art, Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv 25 February - 25 April 2010
'Rupture and Repair, Artists' House, Jerusalem, 8 May - 10 July 2010
Comfort Scapes, Art Cube, The Artists' Studio, Jerusalem, 25 November 2010 - 15 January 2011
Superpartners, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 8 September - 8 October 2011 Artists: Azoulay, Shai | Israel, Reuven
New Directions, Mani House, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2011
Nimrod's Descendants, Artists' House, Jerusalem, 27 October 2011 - 14 January 2012
Prizes in Art and Design from the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport, 2011, Petach Tikvah Museum of Art, Petach Tikva, 31 August - 17 November 2012
Now Now, The Jerusalem Biennale for Contemporary Jewish Art, Jerusalem, 15 September - 31 October 2013
The Dead or Alive Gallery, City Gallery Kfar Saba, Kfar Saba, 21 November - 25 December 2013
Mazal U'Bracha- Myth and Superstition in Contemporary Israeli Art, Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv, 2014
The Museum Presents Itself 2, Israeli Art from the Museum Collection, Dina and Raphael Recanati Family Foundation Galleries Herta and Paul Amir Building, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2015
Akhshav, Stein Rose Fine Art Gallery, NY, USA, 23 April - 3 May 2015
The Circle of Life, Kunstwerk Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf, Germany, 4 June - 9 October 2016
Checkers, Rosenbach Contemporary, Jerusalem, 15 September - 30 October 2016 Artists: Gold, Jonathan | Azoulay, Shai
Repositioning: Old Objects, New Artworks, L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem, Israel, 2017
Amba, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, 1 September - 21 October 2017
Scenes from Family Life: Works from the collections of Israel Discount Bank and contemporary artists, Eretz Israel Museum, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 2018
New in the Collection, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 3 December 2018 - 23 March 2019
Group Exhibition, The Judaica Museum, Tel Aviv University, 2019
'Naked Soul: Chaïm Soutine and Israeli Art, Mishkan Museum of Art, Kibbutz Ein Harod, 11 September 2019 - 21 March 2020
Group Exhibition, Ashdod Museum of Art, 2019
The Artist's Choice, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, 21 February - 23 March 2019




Awards and prizes


2006-2007 Creativity Grant, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Tel Aviv
2007 Legacy Heritage Fund Prize for a Young Artist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
2007 The Osnat Mozes Prize for Painting for a Young Artist, The Artists House, Jerusalem
2008-2010 The Artist Teacher Prize, Ministry of Culture and Sport
2010 Artis Grant Recipient
2011 Creative Encouragement Award, Ministry of Culture and Sport
2018 Ministry of Culture Award
2020 The Israeli Lottery 'Landau Prize' for arts and science
2020 The Foundation for Independent Artists




Collections


The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Ashdod Museum of Art
Taguchi Art Collection, Japan
Salsali Private Museum, Dubai
Rivka Saker & Uzi Zucker Art Collection
The Dubi Shiff Art Collection
Oli Alter Private Collection
Zila & Giora Yaron Art Collection
Hagit & Ofer Shapira Collection
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Matthew Bronfman Private Collection
Bank Leumi Art Collection
Israel Discount Bank Art Collection
Bank Hapoalim Art Collection




References






External links


Official website
The Jerusalem Artist's House
The Israel Museum

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Shai Azoulay
• Tablet (magazine)
• 1st Jerusalem Biennale (2013)
• Full Jewish Home list for Israeli legislative election, 2015
• Shaike Ophir
• Full Zionist Union list for Israeli legislative election, 2015
• Eli Cohen
• Jerusalem Biennale
• Doubtful (film)
• Women in the Israel Defense Forces