My paintings grow out of my observational personality: I regard myself more as an observer than a participant in the situations I find myself in. Through my paintings, I use this lens to analyze human behavior and interactions, therefore discovering myself and going deeper into my relationships.
Nowadays, I feel that people pay extra attention to their surroundings, and especially the culture around food. But what do objects say about us? There are multiple ways to experience people's presence in different places and times, without actually depicting them. In a world that mainly focuses on figurative representation, I find it both fascinating and challenging to explore still-life, which I believe defines us in Western culture.
Throughout my body of work, I take an introspective look into our celebratory, intimate, romantic, and vulnerable moments – and share those personal experiences in a visual way. By finding repetitive objects and places in these compositions, the viewer can begin to define an experience, a culture, and a group of people without including the participants.
My body of work is also a way of translating the transformation and catharsis I’m going through in my life as I become more self-reflective. I take the opportunity to tell my personal stories of happiness, grief, love, loss, and growth by capturing the fleeting moments, the echoes of people, the places, and situations. These stories are fully personal, but at the same time encompassing and relatable.
-Yam Shalev, 2023
