Studio visit / Or Shloman
14.06.2021 By Tal Levy
Hi Or, please tell us a little about yourself, what brought you into the world of art?
It’s hard to say what was the point where I started making art. From a young age I felt I did not know how to use words, that I understood things I could see more than things I could hear. But if we try to touch on a point by the time I got to art then I believe it happened in the army. I was paramedic at the clinic and I think that's where I started calling what I do art. Somehow art saved me from the many grays of army life or life itself. She saved me many times in my life, in moments when I didn't feel I could talk. I believe that what introduced me to the world of art was the ability to imagine another world that could be created.
Could you tell us more about your style, what ideas or mood you put into your work.
The place I grew up in, as well as the other cities I lived in and the moving to and from them, has an impact on my paintings and drawings. I draw inspiration from the streets in which I walk, as well as from a sense of resistance to what takes place in outer space. My language is a truncated, energetic, direct, intermittent street language, clogged at times - from my experience of existence in the world which is an experience of detachment. From this I seek to identify with the places where I live that contain music, people and fringes - a kind of remnant of the world. So are my paintings contain rhythm, remnants, layers.
The deletion that characterises my works comes from the starting point. I start drawing when I have a remnant of a story. The chain of actions that takes place before the painting creates another erasure - capturing certain objects, recording them, and finally I'm drawing it on canvas, which I piece together from old canvases I cut or old bedding I found on the street. The work comes to an end when I have only the feeling of the story left and not himself.
Which artists have especially inspired and inspire you so far?
The Detachment and Adaptation of Avshalom Aka Meir Eshel, the erasure of Moshe Kupferman, the dark rooms of Michel Campeau, the body remnants of Anna Medietta, the perspective of Philip Gaston, the outsidery of James Kassel, the connections of Doberbka Ogersic, the simple descriptions and tears of Lucia Barlin.
Could you describe your usual working day, what habits are typical for you?
I wish I had a routine, I'm currently looking for it.
I usually do an "office" in the morning when I still have strength and concentration - an office means emails, read articles and essay books, write thoughts on studio drawings made the day before or that week.
In the evening or at night when I don't think too much and I'm not in a critical place, when things become a dream, then I work in the studio.
It's important to note that when everything is a mess in my life I work less in the studio because I don't understand what I'm thinking or what I want to talk about, so I make drawings in small sketchbooks while I am out or near friends.
Plans and goals for this year?
Do you have any connections to residencies in Brussels, France, London, Berlin?
Israel is important to me, always when I'm abroad I understand that there is no me without it - the energy, the people, the conflict. But again I feel I have to learn from more places, from people I don't know, from myself alone in another environment.
And I do not have the strength to talk to dinosaurs of second degrees and also like .. Who has the money ?!
This coming summer her works can be seen at the group exhibition of 'Art of Tomorrow' in Tel Aviv and at 'Gerem' Gallery in Jerusalem.