Avigail Talmor paints structures that are functional by definition. Checkpoint #5 belongs to Avigail’s Checkpoint series, where she explores the imposing and controlling nature of these buildings. The work is a close-up of a checkpoint booth with no clear contextual references, loading the image with deeper meanings and questions. Checkpoints are usually transitional spaces between two geographical places, typically on the frontier of two countries or two opposed political areas. It is pr…

Avigail Talmor paints structures that are functional by definition. Checkpoint #5 belongs to Avigail’s Checkpoint series, where she explores the imposing and controlling nature of these buildings. The work is a close-up of a checkpoint booth with no clear contextual references, loading the image with deeper meanings and questions. Checkpoints are usually transitional spaces between two geographical places, typically on the frontier of two countries or two opposed political areas. It is precisely because Avigail refuses to let us know whether this checkpoint refers to a real or fictional barrier that the artwork becomes universal: the checkpoint becomes a potential but different threshold for each of us, provoking a personal mediation of an in-between state.

Avigail Talmor is a painter living and working in Tel-Aviv. Her work is deeply concerned with the relationship between the institutionalized and the private space. The tension between safe and threatening environments is key in her paintings, which usually depict isolated architectural structures a…

Avigail Talmor is a painter living and working in Tel-Aviv. Her work is deeply concerned with the relationship between the institutionalized and the private space. The tension between safe and threatening environments is key in her paintings, which usually depict isolated architectural structures and urban landscapes than conjure a desolate and special sense of beauty.

The use of colour is essential in Avigail's paintings. The contrast between dark and light tones highlights even more the ambivalent qualities of those deserted spaces. Furthermore, she uses acrylic paint as main material, which has an artificial and flat texture and dries faster than oil paint, which informs a very particular rhythm to her painting process.

Influenced by photorealism and contemporary painters such as Franz Ackeman or Dexter Dalwood, Avigail's work has a unique presence that makes us think of Ed Ruscha's iconic gas stations series: sublime, isolated and with a flat surface. Avigail applies a similar treatment to the vernacular of Israel, which inevitably adds a political aspect to her works, even if that is not her primary intention.

Avigal graduated from her BA at the Wizo-Canada Academy of Design (Haifa) in 1997 and from the MFA at the Utrecht School of the Arts (Netherlands) in 2000. Also known as Abigail Talmor.