Avital Burg

Jun 22

Painter—March through June ’19

Website avitalburg.com | Based In Brooklyn, New York

Q: Artist residents at Peleh tend to get a lot of work done when they are in Berkeley? Was that your experience?

A: When I finished the residency it was hard to think about going back to my “real life.” I did about two years worth of work in three months.

Part of the reason I could do that kind of work is because usually at home, in Brooklyn, I have to juggle three things: art, family and teaching. For a few months, I didn’t have to teach, or take other jobs. I could just focus on painting and family.

Q: One of the unique characteristics of the Peleh experience is paid child care. How did that impact your work?

A: Part of the reason I could find such a deep focus in Berkeley was because I had excellent child care for my son. He went to nursery school for the first time out here. And it was the first time since I gave birth that I had this kind of time to myself. Part of the openness of the residency allowed me to just… exist. I could put aside the FOMO [Fear Of Missing Out] that is so present in New York. Instead, I allowed myself to go outside in the middle of the day, to just sit on the grass and be, or take long walks in the nearby mountains. To connect to the childlike part of me that needed to just notice things. It was radical.

Q: What kind of artists did you meet out here?

A: In terms of community and the art world here, it was very productive. Jenny’s [Gheith, a curator at SFMOMA] involvement in my work was extremely helpful. She helped me conceptualize my solo show in Tel Aviv, which was built around the body of work that I made in Berkeley.

The open studio we had at the residency was very important, since it allowed me to expose some of the works after so many hours of being by myself with them. The guests who came by had a level of interest and dedication that was special and different from what I experienced in NYC. It felt like they had more time to really see and discuss the art.

Q: And what about nature and the physical environment in the Bay Area? You’ve mentioned flowers and the general natural beauty.

A: When I arrived at the residency I saw right away that a common wildflower here is the sourgrass, which is the same kind of flower we had near Jerusalem, where I grew up. When I first came I was actually a little overwhelmed by the beauty. I worried Berkeley was too pretty for my taste, for my painting taste at least. But I embraced it, and that allowed me to get to the place I am right now with my work. Brooklyn is not beautiful the way Berkeley is. And in some ways I actually prefer the trash on the ground, and the urban landscape, which I use in my work.

When I was in Berkeley I started to do contre-jour paintings [a style of art which creates a strong contrast between light and dark, creating silhouettes and emphasizing lines and shapes over sharp details]. I did this because of the way the light came into the studio. When I came back to Brooklyn, I dared to paint against the backdrop of whatever was outside, which I’ve never done before.

Q: Where could people see some of this art after you finished the residency?

A: The work I was able to do in Berkeley was shown in the exhibitions I’ve had since then. These include a group exhibition at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, and my solo show West Street, at the Neve Schechter Gallery in Tel Aviv. The core of this work, the backbone, I was able to do while in Berkeley.

Q: Did you imagine you could do as much as you did in just one season?

A: I might have thought that three months wouldn’t be enough to unpack, set up and make a serious body of work. But the residency was set up so that three months turned out to be plenty of time considering the level of focus which I was able to find there. And being able to do that gave me confidence that I could travel somewhere for a shorter period and get something done.

A Brooklyn-based artist from Tel Aviv, Avital Burg creates highly personal works by utilizing specific references from history of art and her own. Burg paints her studio’s physical surroundings, such as the walls and floor, and an ever-changing archive of personal and art historical images, using dense paint textures, on the verge of relief. Symbolic and enigmatic, her carefully crafted canvases appear to be spontaneous and somewhat precarious, as they recall legends and traditions of the past and reflect on present day.

Burg's work was recently shown solo shows at Browse & Darby in association with Crean and Company, London (2022), Pamela Salisbury Gallery, NY (2021), Slag Gallery, NYC (2017) and Neve Schechter Gallery, Tel Aviv (2019-2020). Her work was part of two-person exhibitions at Arts at AJU, Los Angeles, and Club Caltural Matienzo, Buenos Aires. It was also featured in the Greenpoint Film Festival NY, In the Islip Art Museum, NY, as well as in several group shows in New York and Tel Aviv. She was the May 2022 artist in residence of the Interlude Residency in NY, and of the Peleh Residency in California in 2019. Burg's work are part of many collections world-wide, among them are the Louis-Dreyfus Family Collection, NY, The Bank Leumi art collection, Israel, and Mr. Dov Shiff collection, Israel. Burg attended the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, “Hatahana” school of figurative drawing and painting, Tel Aviv, The Slade School of Art, London, and the New York Studio School.