About
Fatma Shanan (1986) born and raised in Julis, a Druze village in Northern Israel; lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Shanan focuses on figurative painting, mostly using the technique of oil on canvas. Her works are characterized by theatrical and enigmatic views on pre-staged scenes, in which participants belong to various circles of her own life. Shanan's art strives to deconstruct firm definitions concerning the art of painting, as well as gender, national and ethnic identities. By this deconstruction, Shanan suggests fluid definitions that can flow through these different realms.
Shanan's paintings are inherently related to a performative preparatory work that precedes them. Shanan seeks to expose the viewer not only to a picturesque medium, but also to an expression of a real performance. In earlier works, Shanan deals mainly with images of rugs, considering them as heterotopic zones, and harnessed the female body to examine the physical and symbolical boundaries of the rug in relation to the body.
In recent small-scaled works, the protagonist in Shanan's pieces - a representation of the artist herself - is surrounded by branches and flowers sprouting from various body postures. Through the many stains characterizing her works, boundaries between the figure and its surrounding nature, as described in poems of Walt Whitman, are blurred.
Shanan is the winner of the 2016 Haim Shiff Prize for Figurative-Realist Art awarded by the Tel Aviv Museum, where she had a solo exhibition during the summer of 2017. She exhibited solo at DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM Gallery, Berlin (2023, 2021) and more. Shanan exhibited in group shows at Kunsthaus museum Zurich (2023); the Contemporary Art Museum of Villa Croce, Italy (2022); The Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem (2020); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2019); the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv (2019); and Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (2018) among others. Shanan’s work participated in art-fairs at venues such as Art Cologne (2021); The Armory show in New York City (2020). Shanan received several other awards and scholarships for her artistic achievements, such as Asylum Arts (2017, 2022); Israel's Ministry of Culture award for Plastic Art (2021); Artis (2016, 2017); Israel’s Ministry of Culture (2017, 2014); and Israel’s Pais Culture Council (2016, 2014, 2013).
CV
Born 1986 in the Druze village Julis, Israel, lives and works in Tel Aviv.
Education
2010 B.Ed , Oranim College, Israel
Solo Exhibitions
2024 Upcoming: Artport Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
2023 THE INN RIVER, DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2021 Leaves of Grass, DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM Gallery, Berlin
2020 Berliner Luft, DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Berlin
2019 Yellow Skirt, DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM Gallery, Berlin
2017 Fatma Shanan: Works 2010-2017, The 2016 Haim Shiff Prize, The Tel Aviv Museum of Art
2016 The Dvir (Inner Sanctum), Fatma Shanan and Michel Platnik, Alfred Institute, Tel Aviv
2015 A Single Continuum, The Um el-Fahem Art Galler
2014 Carpet-Place, Zemack Gallery, Tel Aviv
2011 Crimson, The Contemporary Art Gallery at the Memorial, Tivon
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023
Time, kunsthaus Museum, Zurich, Switzerland
Bezalel Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
Who by Fire , Haus am Lützowplatz - HAL, Berlin, Germany
Past, Still, Present, Lisboa, Portugal
2022
Echo of Memories, Künstlerforum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Israel Landscape, Contemporary Art Museum of Villa Croce, Italy
Material Imagination: Israeli Art from the Museum’s Collection, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
Beyond Belief, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
2021
Year Of The Rat, DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2020
Tresspassing, The Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem
2019
30 artists to the 30 Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Klosterscheune Zehdenick, Germany
Beyond the Veil, Memoire de l`Avenir - Memory of the Future, Paris
Tar and Milk, Hermann Struck Museum, Haifa
Common Place, Silas Von Morisse Gallery, Brooklyn, USA
A Decade of the Haim Shiff Prize for Figurative-Realist Art, The Tel - Aviv Museum
Jacqueline Kahanoff: The Levant as a Parable, The Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv
Artists are the new athletes, the EDIT Gallery', Cyprus
New in the Collection, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
2018
Khamse Khamsa Khamsa, The Museum for Islamic ART, Jeruslem
Only Through Time, Time is Conquered, DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM Gallery, Berlin
Art Dusseldorf, International Art Fair, Germany
Museum of Hunting and Nature, Paris
19 48, Haifa City Museum
2017
“Round About” at the TLVinLDN festival. London
Nonfinito, Artport gallery. Tel - Aviv
Repositioning: Old Objects, New Artworks, The Islamic Museum, Jerusalem
From a village you are and to a village you will return, The Janco Dada Museum; Ein Hod.
2016
Territory-Textile-Text, Mana Contemporary, The MECA Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, USA
Agropolis, The Science Museum, Jerusalem, Israel, curator: Maayan Shelef
Zemack Gallery Artists at the Fresh Paint Art Fair, Tel Aviv
2015
Road Map, The Contemporary Art Gallery at the Memorial Center, Kiryat Tivon
40x30x20, Zemack Gallery, Tel Aviv
STUDIOS, Zemack Gallery, Tel Aviv
Adam H, Haemek Museum, Kibbutz Yifat
Print.Labor, Alfred Gallery, Tel Aviv
No Man is an Island: Artists from Israel / Switzerland, Ha'riviera Art Gallery, Bat Yam
Art Toronto, International Art Fair, Toronto, Canada
Art Stage Singapore, International Art Fair, Singapore
2014
Residents’ Exhibition, HomeBase Project Art Residency, Jerusalem
ALFRED XL, Alfred Gallery, Tel Aviv
Spring 2014, Mana Contemporary, The MECA Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, USA
2013
Re-Orientation, The Mediterranean Biennale, Sakhnin
Camp No. 6, Ramle Municipal Gallery for Contemporary Art, Ramle
2012
Young Masters: Young Israeli Artists, CBK, The Center for Visual Art, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Terra Nova, The Municipal Gallery, Bat Yam
Spring 2012, Mana Contemporary, The MECA Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, USA
Blooming, Florentin 45 Contemporary Art Space, Tel Aviv
2011
Face to Face, The Mormon University, Jerusalem
Nature, Still Life, Gebo Gallery, Tel Aviv
Laboratoire #2, Memoire de l'Avenir Gallery, Paris, France
International Contemporary Art Festival, Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France
Art Auction, Bonhams Auction House, London, UK
Wind Stones, Daniel Gallery, Tel Aviv
Art Fairs
2023
ART COLOGNE 2022, Cologne, Germany
2022
ART COLOGNE 2022, Cologne, Germany
2021
ART COLOGNE 2021, Cologne, Germany
Roma Arte in Nuvola, Rome, Italy
2020
The Armory Show, New York, United States
artgenève, Geneva, Switzerland
2019
The Armory Show, New York, United States
2018
Art Dusseldorf, International Art Fair, Germany
2016
Zemack Gallery Artists at the Fresh Paint Art Fair, Tel Aviv, Israel
2015
Art Toronto, International Art Fair, Toronto, Canada
Art Stage Singapore, International Art Fair, Singapore
Residencies
2023
NAIRS foundation residency, Scuol, Switzerland
2020
The Fountainhead Residency, Miami, Florida, USA
2018
Residency UnLimited', Brooklyn, NY
2017- 2018
Peleh Fund Residency, California
2016-2017
Artport, Tel Aviv
2014
HomeBase Project, Jerusalem
Special Events
2018
Conference; The Rug as Heterotopic Zone, New York University. NY
2016
Place, Hybridity, Displacement: Painter Fatma Shanan Dery, guest lecture in the course “History of Culture in Palestine/Israel, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Awards and Scholarships
2022
The 2021 Minister of Culture Award for plastic arts
2020
Outset grant for Body Portrait / Group exhibition “Trespassing”
2017
Artis Residency RU Grant Support
Asylum Arts Grant
The Ministry of culture award for the young artist
2016
Haim Shiff Prize for Figurative-Realist Art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
'Artis' project grant
The Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts’ Grant, Tel Aviv
The Pais Culture Council’s Grant for the dual exhibition with Michel Platnik
2014
The Pais Culture Council’s Grant for the publication of a catalogue for the solo exhibition “A Single Continuum”
Artist in the Community Project, The Ministry of Culture and Sport
2013
The Pais Culture Council’s Grant for the solo exhibition “A Single Continuum”
2011
The Tali Cohen Garbuz and The Contemporary Art Gallery at the Memorial Center, Kiryat Tivon
Curator's Prize for excellency in the Graduate Project at The Art Institute, Oranim Academic College
2010
Excellency Award, The America-Israel Cultural Foundation
Prize for the Encouragement of Further Artistic Creation, The Art Institute, Oranim Academic College, Kiryat Tivon
Selected Collections
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
The Miniature Museum of Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Netherlands
Credit Suisse Collection
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Ilana Goor Museum, Jaffa
Luna Art Fund, Tel Aviv, Israel and New York
Rivka Saker and Uzi Zucker, Tel Aviv
Dubi Shiff, Tel Aviv
Private collections in Israel and abroad
catalogs
Fatma Shanan. Dittrich & Schlechtriem, ed. Germany: DISTANZ, 2021.
Fatma Shanan: Works 2010-2017. The Tel Aviv Museum, Jun 2017
A Single Continuum (Heb, Arb, Eng), Fatma Shanan Dery - Exhibition Catalogue, The Um el-Fahem Gallery, Jan 2015. Texts by: Carmit Blumenson, Gideon Ofrat and Yael Guilat