Ophrah Shemesh (December 9, 1952) is an American artist, best known for her intense, existentially themed oil and tempera paintings of women and men. [1] [2] [3]
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Ophrah Shemesh (December 9, 1952) is an American artist, best known for her intense, existentially themed oil and tempera paintings of women and men. [1] [2] [3]
Born in Haifa, Israel, to Albert Shemesh [4] and Carmella-Daisy Levy. Albert was an important Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) activist in Iraq, before the creation of the state of Israel. [5] Shemesh studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design [6] in Jerusalem (1972-1976).
In 1973, Israeli filmmaker and director Amos Gitai [7] cast her in a short film, My Mother at the Seashore, [8] and later gave her a leading role in Golem, the Spirit of Exile [9] (1991), also starring Hanna Schygulla, Sam Fuller, and Bernardo Bertolucci.
Shemesh attended the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture (NYSS) from 1979-1983. [6] In 1986, she was one of a new group of teachers brought in by then dean, Bruce Gagnier, [10] and has been a member of the faculty since. [11] In 2009, she was interviewed by Stanley Crouch as part of the NYSS Evening Lecture Series, "In Conversation with Stanley Crouch". [12] Shemesh has also taught and spoken in a variety of other programs and symposia, including the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts, [13] Kremer Pigments, the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture, [14] the Sicily Artist in Residence Program (SARP), [15] and the College de France. [16]
Shemesh’s work is in the permanent collection of Collezione Maramotti [17] and appears in Mario Diacono (2012), Archetypes and Historicity: Painting and Other Radical Forms, 1995-2007, [18] Ophrah Shemesh: Silence of the Sirens, 2008-2011, [19] and Max Tomasinelli (2011), Portraits of Artists. [20]
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