In Self-Portrait as a Soldier, one of my earliest bodies of work, I explored fundamental and primal riddles that puzzles me:
the intertwining of existence and transience, of memory and forgetfulness, of presence and absence, of life and death.

The figure of the soldier served as a starting point—both because my military service was still fresh in my mind and as a reference to my father, one of the founders of the Israeli Navy.

I photographed various objects  in a way reminiscent of memorial photography—
commemoration that simultaneously engages with death, loss, and separation, while also addressing life, memory, and what remains.

The Self-Portrait, taken with a pinhole camera and a long exposure, transforms a rigid and masculine setting into something softer—
an ambiguous space where echoes of the past resonate in new, uncertain forms.

 

EXHIBITIONS

2001 - Ariel Yannay, Opal Gallery, Tel Aviv; curator: Stéphanie Benzaquen (cat.)

2005- "Power," Turbine Hall, Reading Power Station Compound, Tel Aviv; curator: Doron Rabina

PUBLICATIONS

Exhibition Catalogue

Ofer Lellouche and Ariel Yannay - A conversation