BIO

Marina Levitan is an Israeli based artist. Born in the USSR, at the age of 16 she moved to Israel. Marina graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem in 2004. In 2014 she graduated from Jerusalem Studio School, a private painting school by Israel Hershberg. She lives and works in Jerusalem.

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Her works explore scenes and situations from everyday life, in the crossing of which something new and unpredictable  is born. She is seeking those exciting moments.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

For me, painting is a tool that helps me understand the reality around me, examine it and communicate my understanding with the world. Reality, is internalized and processed within me and finds its way into my painting. Because my painting clings to reality and its interpretations, it is mostly figurative, but in the last year, following the influence of external reality and my focus on reflections and playing with light, my works have become more and more abstract.
 
I strive to find harmony in the simple things that surround me and present those things from an unexpected and interesting angle to surprise myself, and with the help of painting, to discover something new every time. I find poetry precisely in the trivial, banal things that we are used to not paying attention to. The biggest challenge for me is to capture that one unique, special and irreversible moment, and distill its essence, its uniqueness. If it is an ongoing work, in every “session” of painting, lasting several hours, I strive to capture the fleeting moment, to live it and understand it, to be here and now. I explore my home and look for interesting angles and reflections that inspire me. I scatter objects around the house and wait until they reveal their hidden side to me - maybe when a ray of light falls from the window at the right angle.
 

I work in oil colors, charcoal and gouaches. The oil colors give space to the process, a physical expression of time, and allow great versatility at work, giving room for change and play. Coal also allows this, albeit in a slightly different way.
 
I love the childish and playful part of the process, and play with shapes and objects as if I were assembling a puzzle - moving and changing, until I feel that all the pieces of the puzzle connect in the most appropriate way to this moment in my life and thus perpetuate the moment. The next day, if I get up and continue the same work, I open things up again and start a new game. Thus, most of my works undergo countless changes until I feel I have reached a certain level of perfection.