Yigal Ozeri is an Israeli artist based in New York City. He is known for large-scale cinematic portraits of young women in landscapes. As one of the leading Photorealism painters, his works tend to capture ethereal scenes of women in nature. In this beautiful oil painting, we see a young woman with a light complexion and calm expression, lying horizontally in a rocky shallow stream of water. Her long brown hair flows freely over her shoulders and body, with some strands touching the rocks in the water. She wears a red paisley dress, which is a striking feature of the painting. The fabric appears to be flowing in the water, with subtle variations in color and texture, reflecting the light. Her body position is relaxed and suggests a sense of peace. The water around her reflects the light and appears slightly translucent, showing the rocks and natural elements beneath the water's surface to create a textured natural background. The realistic artistic style captures the subtlety of water, fabric, and skin while the colors are rich and vibrant and the lighting creates a warm tranquil atmosphere. Ozeri’s compositions "probe the boundaries between painting and photography within the context of the Digital Age.” He takes photos of his subjects that evoke the aestheticism of late Romanticism and 19th-century melancholia. These photographs are projected onto a canvas with traced outlines. The projection is then removed, and the artist translates the forms into tiny painted color shapes that are gradually tightened and blended for varying degrees of focus. In his process of visual translation, Ozeri "preserves the handmade as a record of its own means of representation, rather than that of what it depicts." The painting thus serves as an act of abstraction, transcription, and transformation. This results in a painting that is formal and conceptually open to interpretation rather than merely a skillful rendering of appearances.

“Untitled; Shely” by Yigal Ozeri (Israeli) - Oil on paper / 2017 - Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington DC) #womeninart #art #realism #oilpainting #photorealism #womensart #YigalOzeri #Ozeri #artwork #fineart #SAAM #IsraeliArtist #NYCartist #smithsonian #bskyart #SmithsonianAmericanArtMuseum