In his first solo exhibition at WOAW gallery in Hong Kong, “Between Times”, Yam Shalev gives us the opportunity to glance at his personal reflection of how ephemeral mementos in our daily life are more complex and vibrant than we may imagine.
Based in Berlin, Shalev has gained significant international recognition over the last three years. His ability to create charming yet thought-provoking works of art that mix magical realism with a vibrant colour palette, Shalev guides us through a woven exploration of intimacy and introspection.
Through a series of paintings of what one may think as “customary” and “quotidian”, Shalev manages to question the viewer how our daily and disregarded moments can actually be full of complexity, life and colour.
In a highly hyper connected and fast-paced world, the beauty of our daily and intimate life can be overlooked. Humanity needs to recover itself by appreciating the warm and colourful moments that surround us. Yam Shalev, through his three-series portrays, gives us a space to freeze time and reexamine the hidden beauty of common spaces in daily human life.
“Between Times” can be described as a careful composition that doesn’t focus on displaying the spectacular but that rather turns the “ordinary” into a tale of unspoken stories. Shalev takes familiar objects like cups of tea, books, chocolate, food and flowers into his paintings and displays each one of them to reveal the luxury, serenity and vulnerability of passing time.
