An artist's biography, claims Ofer Lellouche, interferes with understanding his work. "They never ask a mathematician about his biography. But they ask an artist, because they think it's relevant," he says. "Van Gogh was known as a madman who cut off his ear. But the painter Van Gogh was not at all crazy. He progressed step by step: He did preparatory sketches, mixed colors, put them on the palette, took a paintbrush, put it on the canvas, cleaned the brush, took another color and applied it to the canvas. That's not a scribbler; that's a very calculated, very level-headed
painter."
For about three decades Lellouche, 63, has been considered a major painter and sculptor in the Israeli art world. At the same time his work appears frequently in exhibitions abroad, and it often seems that the focus of his artistic career is there. In the past decade he has had two major exhibits here, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the open museums in Tefen and Omer, plus another one in the Jaffa port. As of late June, his works are being exhibited alongside those of Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz and others in: "Albertina Contemporary: From Gerhard Richter to Kiki Smith" - the new permanent exhibition at one of the major classical art museums in western Europe: the Albertina in Vienna. Read more >>
Ofer Lellouche Self Portrait on a Transparent Mirror from Ofer Lellouche on Vimeo.
