From the beginning of his career in the 1990s, Gilad Efrat has dealt with the historical and political complexity of the landscape, developing it through a unique painting. Through a method of work based on subtraction – “wiping” layers of color – he constantly examines systems of mutual relations between painting and photography, landscape and world image and focuses on questions of consciousness – both universal and local.
Gilad Efrat was born in Be’er Sheva and his landscapes and wide landscape of the Negev are an integral part of the infrastructure picture of his childhood. In the past year he began to paint the landscape of the Negev near Be’er Sheva – the painting “Negev” 2010, was purchased by the Artview Foundation for the Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod and has a significant focus in this exhibition (first since his return from the United States).
The exhibition “Ape Scape” at the Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod displays landscapes created by Efrat in various periods, as well as portraits of apes that he has been painting since 2005. In the process of growing closer to the paintings, the images become fragmented and abstract, the faces of the apes are gathered and the wrinkles resonate in relation to the rocky, cracked landscapes. The viewer wanders between paintings of ruined cities, forests, and prison facilities. images of places where the perception of time is lost.