Bio
Ben Cnaan is the first and only Israeli artist to receive 1st place in the most prestigious award for realistic painters: The BP Portrait Award (2015), The National Portrait Gallery, London for his painting ‘Annabelle and Guy’. The painting narrates the tragic and harrowing tale of Jephthah and his daughter.
The main focus of his work is “scene painting” in which he creates and exposes the viewer to complex moral situations, and explores moral dilemmas, inter-personal relationships, and human behavior. Adopting classical elements into his figurative paintings creates a pictorial language whose vocabulary allows him to express these complex issues on the canvas. The basic sentence structure of this language consists of gestures and positioning acting as verbs and shapes and colors as nouns and adjectives.
Ben Cnaan draws considerable inspiration from the codex of complex, morally laden stories – the bible. He reinterprets the stories and recast them with present day people, to communicate the ageless quality of these basic issues.
Selected Exhibitions
2021
The Bureaucrat
Painting by Matan Ben Cnaan
Reading by David Grossman
The Israel Museum
Jerusalem, Israel
2019
Group Show
Tel Aviv Museum
Tel Aviv, Israel
2018
Solo Show
Tel Aviv Museum
Tel Aviv, Israel
2015
BP Portrait Award
National Portrait Gallery
London, England
2014
Group Show
Fresh Paint “Special Edition” Art Fair
Tel Aviv, Israel
2013
Solo Show
Ha’tahana Gallery
Tel Aviv, Israel
2012
Bound/Unbound
JLima- Studio Gallery
Easton, PA
2012
Group Show
Grand Art Contemporary Art Gallery
Haifa, Israel
2011
Shvartse Vilde Haye
Zemack Contemporary Art
Tel Aviv, Israel
2010
Frame to Reality
Haifa Museum of Art
Haifa, Israel
2009
Lolita
The Office Gallery
Tel Aviv, Israel
2009
Group Show
Fresh Paint Art Fair
Tel Aviv, Israel
2008
Solo Show
Emek-Yisrael’s College Gallery
Jezreel Valley, Israel
2008
Solo Show
Fresh Paint Art Fair
Tel Aviv, Israel
2008
Giluy Shem “Works by Promising Graduates from all of Israel”
Haifa University
Haifa, Israel
2007
Graduation Show
Oranim College
Tivon, Israel
Acknowledgements
I was 11 years of age when my mother offered me my late grandfather's oil colors. Three decades have passed since then.
Dozens of paintings, multiple exhibitions, and a variety of achievements have become possible due to the support and encouragement of my close family, friends and many others.
I would like to acknowledge my highly revered tutors, who have instilled in me invaluable knowledge, as well as my fellow artists and students, with whom I have an ongoing and fruitful discourse, for their critique, observations and honest opinions which have been a fountain of inspiration to me.
I thank the collectors who appreciate my work and without whose support I would not have been able to do what I do best. To all cooperative creators from other disciplines such as literature, music, philosophy and art history, who have enriched my work with meaningful layers of their interpretations, profound insights, texts and creativity - I offer appreciation from the bottom of my heart.
My deep gratitude also goes to the photographers, my website designer, curators, and my framer. Thanks to them my paintings are exhibited and look at their best both in the real space and cyberspace.
Last but not least, to YOU,
who will hopefully follow my creation and enjoy my work - Thank You!
Photos and reproductions by: Avi Amsalem, Studio Shuki Kook, Shir Hassin, Elad Sarig