Artist-in-Residence
Shirel Horovitz
June-August 2027
“What I’m looking forward to the most is the mentoring, the exchange and the particular context it offers. Being an Israeli woman is something that quietly runs through everything I make, not as a subject I address head-on, but as a lens I can't take off. I rarely get the chance to sit with that openly, within a space that actually foregrounds these identities. The distance from Israel feelsnecessary to do this. Being outside my environment, looking back at it from somewhere else, feels like it could unlock something. I'm curious what happens to my practice when I'm given room to examine it from the outside. A new environment offers different materials, urban scapes and textures alongside people to learn from and work with.”
-Shirel Horovitz
Chapter 2 2027 Air
Artist Statement:
While my practice moves between sculpting, etching, drawing and performance, the thread connecting both my body of work and process is my interest in extracting beauty from the mundane and creating playful and introspective spaces for viewers to engage with.
Urban architecture, furniture and the meeting between them and the human figure are my main interests. I gather images, furniture and inspiration from the street into my studio. These objects and materials carry the essence of place and relations and with them I craft new work, building hybrid sculptures that are part dysfunctional furniture and part creature. I work with different spaces and professionals, inviting their expertise to inform my sculpting process. This ethic of exchange and respect for varied forms of knowledge extends to how I think about viewers, aiming to engage people of varied ages and experiences.
The driving rationale of my work draws on the memory of function, not to repair it, but to search for new forms that respect the past while opening new possibilities for imagination. I see myself.
