Barbarian In The Garden is the title of Guy Yanai's first solo exhibition opening on November 4th at Praz-Delavallade in Los Angeles. After Paris, Brussels and NYC, this is the Tel Aviv-based artist's foruth solo showing in 2017.
Yanai's work is known for reflection of the pragmatic side of life through depiction of recognizable and common objects or settings. Purposely reduced to a pixelated appearance, with accented brush work texture, the images carry universal and timeless recognition and relation value, mixing the classic painterly approach with hi-tech digital aesthetics. It's his calculated paint application technique that makes the work so distinctive, minimizing the fine layering while achieving enviable sense of depth and light effect. Stripped of any details, his solid color block-based renderings have the appearance of cut-outs or collages, referring to the fading of memory.
Often using childhood impressions or drawings as reference images for his work, his motifs range from takes on classic artworks, still-life compositions, interiors or exteriors, as well as views from his apartment in Tel-Aviv or a hotel in Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer in the south of France. Strongly influenced by impressionist masters such as Matisse and Cézanne, as well as contemporary figures like Tal R and David Hockney, Yanai uses vibrant pigments both when working with oils or colored pencil, explicitly accenting the warmth and light of his native land.—Sasha Bogojev
