Jossef Krispel

Jossef Krispel was born in 1974 in Israel, where he currently lives and works. Krispel's paintings illustrate his yearning for a perfect, constant, and structured being, reminiscent of the 18th-century world. Yet, they simultaneously reflect the deconstruction, detachedness, and devastation of a world built upon the shaky foundations of the Post-Modernist era. On the one hand, Krispel's craving for perfection attests to an insatiable hunger for a hidden image. On the other hand, the fragments of these images have lost relevance from their source and consequently, can no longer return intended meaning.

All of these detached images have been excised from some limitless contemporary encyclopedia. However, it is the very act of painting that seems to bring life back to these images that are otherwise on the verge of disappearance and face the danger of extinction. Moreover, their vitality is the indicator of human passion with all of its desires and nightmares, from which humanity has been seeking to wake from the beginning of time.

Jossef Krispel's work has been displayed in solo exhibitions including Ghosts, Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2009; Display, Palazzo Medici Riccardi Museum, Florence in 2010; I am, Botany, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in 2006; The Garden, Haifa Museum of Contemporary Art in 2006; and Elvis, The Artist's Studios in Tel Aviv in 2007. Recent group exhibitions include This Is: Private, E-merge-D Gallery of Contemporary Art, Glasgow in 2003; Outside in/A week of art and the box, BFAMI Sotheby’s, London in 2004; and Real Time, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem in 2008. Krispel has been awarded with numerous prestigious prizes amongst them the Grant for Outstanding Young Artists, Glasgow School of Art in 2003 and the Rappaport Prize for Young Painter, Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2008.

Courtesy of Noga Gallery