Current Exhibition
Meidad Landoy – Observer
26.9.24 - 29.11.24
Observing Artist / Gavriel Engel
Meidad Landoy is an observing Artist.
His Paintings take the viewers on a journey in landscape, culture & art through his artistic lenses.
Landoy resides and creates in Be’it El that is on the mountain side of the Benyamin region. In his paintings he curiously searches and studies his birthplace’s landscape as well as that of Eretz-Israeli culture, that surround his life and world: what happens when the sun drops its shadow upon the tree? What is the difference in perspective between the unkempt and plowed field? And how all these combine in the view of the road snaking upwards in the mountain? The landscapes in his paintings turn into a fascinating story, especially when considering the complexity of the region.
Landoy studied painting with Leonid Balaklav, as well as at the “Station” school for art under Aram Gershuni. He paints and researches the classical art world, creating his paintings in the way of the classical masters: he goes out to the field equipped with an easel, paints, papers and a real passion to discover the many layers of his artistic research, as he paints what he sees as he sees it.
Alongside landscapes, Landoy consistently visits museums and paints their spaces, all the while referring to the paintings and sculptures in the exhibitions, halls and outdoors of the museum. As an observing artist, he also sees the humanity in these spaces: the art goers frequenting the exhibits, and alongside them the museum’s guards, who are sometimes invisible to the visitors. He also paints his own image, as part of his study of self portraits and as a homage to the great Israeli and international artists exhibited in the museum.
Landoy also deals with the private space of his home, as he paints the kitchen and living room in interior paintings.
In his paintings he scatters various signs of his life and the life of his family, and by that granting a more mysterious manner to these very personal interiors.
In this exhibition, The Engel Gallery is opening a window into a new and refreshing creation of a contemporary artist, that feeds his true meaning from the paintings of classical artists – that influence the artworld to this day.
