Leon Family Gallery
Through early November
Reception with the artist: Thursday, October 13, 4 pm
Shony Rivnay is an interdisciplinary Israeli-American artist based in Tel Aviv. His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the world —Germany, Japan, South Korea—and most recently, in Cleveland, Ohio. Curated by Erica Hartman-Horvitz, co-chair of the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection, Unfolding Nature: Dancing Through Waves is now on display in the Leon Family Gallery at the Simon Family Jewish Community Center.
Dr. Smadar Sheffy, chief curator at Contemporary Art Center Ramla in Israel, describes Rivnay’s work as “broad gestures, generous color patches, luscious paint spots,” a celebration of “movement and sound suffused with the present, an encounter of the gaze with an avalanche of colors and shapes.”
The paintings in the collection are diverse in their composition—some are painted with acrylics, others with oils, and on a variety of canvasses.
Arie Berkowitz, director and head curator at the Tel Aviv Artist House, says of Rivnay, “His large-scale paintings invite viewers to join the artist on his inner journey so rich in color, textures, and abstract asymmetrical compositions. The artist has set out on a personal journey into the soul’s labyrinth, resulting in patches of color weaving a multilayered musical fabric, leaning on the tension between the revealed and the concealed, between the material and the spiritual. All of these elements come together to form a rhythmic collage with layers of surfaces of clean colors, drawn lines, and an unexpected colorful vibration shattering the comfortable balance with a precise counterpoint.”
Rivnay will speak at the reception next month.
For more information about Arts + Ideas programming, including the Leon Family Gallery, contact Hunter Thomas, director of Arts + Ideas at the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, at HThomas@UJFT.org.