Born in 1966 in Israel, Avner Ben-Gal lives and works in Tel-Aviv. Ben-Gal’s grim allegorical paintings and drawings can be seen to depict human beings as the victims of an existential struggle within a cruel world, or conversely, as the tiny masters of their own disastrous fate. His works often represent society’s minor cast of characters, isolated in barren landscapes or rural settings ablaze. His paintings depict scheming animals or seedy individuals with no official count, surviving through shady means in the dark spaces on the fringes of civic appropriateness. Veiled in large monochrome washes of acrylic paint, his apocalyptic visions also enter into a larger discourse on painting and imagery, addressing the question of representation at a time when the media regularly provides unadulterated views of war, crime and horror.

Avner Ben-Gal has had solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum, Basel (2008), Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2007), Bortolami Dayan, New York (2006), and Sadie Coles HQ, London (2005). His work has also been shown as part of Dark at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2006), Blind Date – Selected Affinities, New Acquisition in the Deutsche Bank Collection, Seligenstadt, Germany (2006), Painting 2004 at Victoria Miro Gallery, London (2004) and Clandestine, The 50th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, (2003). He has been awarded the Rapapport Award (2008) Minister of Education and Culture Prize (1998), the Koliner award for young artists, The Israel Museum of Art, Jerusalem (1996) and the Mary Fisher award for excellent young artists, Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem (1993).

Avner Ben-Gal is represented by Sadie Coles HQ, London and Bortolami, New York.