Iris Bar'am

My name is Iris, and I am a figurative painter. My paintings are mostly still life works and landscapes, but not in the usual style. They always contain an element that is unexpected. I try to create an atmosphere of mystery that will try to express the human sense of awe when we look at nature and try to research it and understand it by the tools we have – science, philosophy etc. This is why I incorporate elements like flying fish or three suns in landscape paintings, and angels or squids in still life paintings. You could say my work resembles surrealism, but my aim is not to convey symbols of the subconscious, but to express my sense of wonder in a style that is more in keeping with magical realism. I study biology and wonder about it through painting. Studying biology is like going down the rabbit hole – the more you learn, the more complicated and mysterious it becomes.

I have been painting for several decades, but as figurative art was not in fashion in these decades, I didn’t exhibit often. I studied painting with the Israeli artist Israel Hershberg , who is known for strict realism, and with Ruth Cohen, and abstract painter, but I have always painted in the figurative style.

Like all painters, I am deeply connected to and deeply admire painters from the past – Vermeer, Velasquez, Max Ernst, Gauguin, Yves Tanguy, Rothko and many others. In my opinion, painting is one of humanity’s finest adventures, and certainly one of our least harmful. I hope realist and figurative art will find its way back to the forefront in the art world.