Amnon David Ar

Amnon David Ar’s works invite the viewer to take time and look at things that are at the threshold of our attention in daily life. He strives not merely to depict the world, but rather to respond to contemporary issues we face, thereby endowing his painting with humour, as well as with a critical and political resonance. Painting from observation and deliberately navigating between surrealist hyper-realism and, at times the unfinished, his still lives, portraits, scenes, interiors, and landscapes interpret the contemporary human experience. Inspired by history, music, design, and literature, Ar carefully collects curiosities, symbolic objects, or antiques to which he feels an affinity, building a library for his compositions. Often drawing our attention to overlooked objects such as machines, toys, or trash, he seeks to reveal aspects that transcend the subject of the painting to focus on the relational, on the societal – in short, on the human. In his paintings we may find an old steriliser standing next to an inflated pig, a broken egg juxtaposed with a golden Chinese fortune cat, a Lenin bust situated next to a fresh banana – rather playfully questioning the relation between such elements, than providing us with the answer. ​ Ar’s monumental project The Cycle of Life, revolves around six phases of life: birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, old age, and death. In this large-scale series, ongoing since 2016, we find reflections on beauty, fear, hope, and fantasy, often embedded with symbolism and external references. In all his figurative oeuvres, he seeks to uncover the psychology of his models, and searches for the mysterious relation between physical appearance and inner self. His series of toys mirrors the tension between fantasy and reality, mass production versus individualism, as well as social indoctrination and gender roles. When working “plein air,” Ar gravitates towards urban landscapes or outdoor scenes where human hustle is evident, such as factories, street views, airports, vehicles, etc. Ar was awarded with the first prize at See Me competition in New York, Haim Shiff prize at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and third prize winner at the Australian Boynes Artist Award in Melbourne. In 2025 he published his first artist monograph Light Years with Hirmer Verlag, covering thirty years of his work. Current and upcoming solo exhibition in 2026 will take place at Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz in collaboration with the St. Matthäus Stiftung, and at the Kurt Mühlenhaupt Museum, as part of Berlin Art Week 2026. He collaborated with leading curators including Dr. Bob van den Boogert (curator of the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam), Martin Kiefer (curator of contemporary art at the Louvre Museum in Paris), Dr. Aya Lurie (director and head curator of the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art), Dr. Doron Lurie (former senior curator and restorer at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art), and others. He gave lectures at Weizmann Institute of Science, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He exhibited at the Museo Europeo de Arte Moderno Barcelona, Tel Aviv Museum, Armory Show and the Forum Gallery in New York, MZ Art Space Berlin, Vielliers Gallery Amsterdam and Bernard and Mika Galleries in Tel Aviv, The Medici, The Cube and OXO Galleries in London, NordArt Büdelsdorf, Realisme Art-Fair Amsterdam, Arkansas Art Center, Kunstvereine Worms and Schwetzingen, Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art, Haifa Museum, Janco Dada Museum Ein Hod, Bat Yam Museum, Ashdod Museum, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, and the Artists’ House in Jerusalem. His works have been featured in prestigious book publishers such as Thames & Hudson, Austin Macauley and Hirmer Verlag, and appear in the collections of the The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Len Blavatnik’s collection, Sabag Collections, Stiftung St. Matthäus, Sir Ronald Cohen Collection, to mention a few. Born in Israel in 1973, he spent much of his childhood traveling between Germany, France, and the USA, following his father’s work as a professor of animal physiology. Ar started his professional career as an illustrator and caricaturist for leading newspapers in Israel at the early age of 17. He was later trained in classical painting and anatomy for the arts with Abraham Bykov and Oswald Adler. Spending merely a year at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, he then continued his independent artistic path. Having been a peace activist from his teens, he recently co-founded Responses Culture Society e.V., a charity organisation promoting the interaction between different forms of art, as well as values of democracy, social equality, and peace. He currently resides in Berlin, Germany.