Inbal Mendes-Flohr

Artist's Statement:

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I work with subjects I believe to be timeless, like femininity, sexuality, gender, esthetics, color and materiality. I examine gender issues through a dialogue between esthetics, tenderness and desire on the one hand and power games and violence on the other.

My art rests on images from the world of political protest, current affairs, Christianity, popular culture, comics, science fiction and fantasy. The images I borrow undergo a process of association, and are freed from the known photographs, while they gain mythological associations.

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I take the liberty to mix traditional and “high” cultures and materials, like oil paints with “cheap” materials of “low” culture, such as markers and gouache. Painterly questions are not less important to me than my concern with content.

As an artist working today, I aspire to be a part of the contemporary art and public discourse. I love to exhibit in galleries and other art spaces, but also to expose my art to different populations, and I regularly participate in large-scale projects such as Under the Lamplight at Kibbutz Ein Shemer, and art installations at Midburn in the Negev, the Israeli version of Burning Man.

I am concerned with the status of women in Israel and particularly with violence against women. My identity as a woman and mother of four is an important element in my work, and through the personal, I touch on wider social and political issues.