ABOUT ME
Sivan Lavie (b. 1992) is a queer visual artist and poet based in Tel Aviv. Her work deals with building a new parallel universe of meditative calm, emotional processing, abstraction, joy, color, and childlike wonder. Sivan’s paintings are a gloopy, textural exploration of color and texture. Sivan deals in abstraction and the unknown, spirituality, the body, love, the power of words and meditation. She believes we are here to heal and feel the big colorful moving weirdness of the universe, to slow down and see the magic, as well as create it. Sivan obtained an MFA (with Honors and an Academic Excellence Award) in Fine Art from Bezalel Academy, as well as an MSc in Art and Science from Central Saint Martins, and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Birmingham. She has had solo shows at Power and Light Press New Mexico, at Gepäckausgabe, Glarus, in Tel Aviv at Magasin III Jaffa Bookstore, The Central Bus Station, The Red House, and in London at Mallord’s Telephone Exchange. She’s also self-organized several outdoor shows in the US and Israel, and curated several group shows in London and Tel Aviv. Sivan’s exhibited in group shows and fairs in Sweden, the US, Greece, Israel, the UK and is collected privately in Israel, Belgium, the UK, Switzerland and the US. She’s published poetry in Keith LLC Journal, Minto Press, Earthbound Press, SPECTRA Poets, Care Where Zine.
MY MANIFESTO
My art is not directed at the brain, but at the body. This is an informed radical act of uniting people through their senses. My work is dead serious but doesn’t take itself seriously: I connect to people through love, play and fun. I use vibrant colors, tactility, large dimensions and words to create playful enveloping experiences for the viewers, through painting, installation and performative lectures. They do not need to know anything to enjoy the art, they can come as they are and feel.
My work deals with politics of space, color and composition. Through using mostly white background in my paintings and working with colorful mixed media such as spray, acrylic and oil, the compositions have an airy feeling, in which the viewer is rendered floating in space, in between colored forms. My circles and lines bring to life an unmanifested reality of electricity and interconnections. My paintings thus create space and offer it to viewers who may not experience a feeling of space in their daily lives. The work offers inclusion and creates new spaces of belonging, offering a refreshing chance to breathe.
My studio is a playground in which unstretched canvas and paper on the floor provide the surfaces for forms to appear. I am the dancer, using my body to direct energy onto the canvas and create form. My favorite is working in large-scale, being engulfed by the piece I am working on. Artmaking for me is a very physical act. I experiment with different materials on a spectrum between fine art materials and children’s craft materials, toys and found objects. My interest in materials isn’t scienfitic but led by childlike fascination and aesthetic curiosity: for me colors are very potent and I explore their magic. In conjunction to painting I write poetry and have published my own artist book and sticker book of positive affirmations. I am fascinated by the potency of language in creating new realities and bridging the gap between the manifested and the abstract. Saying something brings it into being. In my performative lectures I explore the divine birth of imagery from language, as well as inner states, emotions, color and meditation. I use my voice and projections of my work as well as collected found imagery from the internet to convey a deep message about love, breath and unitedness.
My work functions in creating a new, parallel reality that has more to offer than the common blind reality of suffering. I offer a reality of play, of color and abstraction in which there is nonjudgmental time and space, giving the viewer’s body energy to breathe and let go, reminding them that there is room for everything. Providing space for people to feel is a radical and important act. I am interested in the moment the viewer is left speechless in front of the artwork. It is a moment beyond judgments, when there’s nothing to name, say or ‘figure out’. There’s no me and you, this or that. It’s a moment of pure unitedness and connection: the viewer becomes one with himself, with his breath, with everyone else, with eternity. Everyone is a god.dess and can create their own reality and I’m carrying that political message on.
My work deals with politics of space, color and composition. Through using mostly white background in my paintings and working with colorful mixed media such as spray, acrylic and oil, the compositions have an airy feeling, in which the viewer is rendered floating in space, in between colored forms. My circles and lines bring to life an unmanifested reality of electricity and interconnections. My paintings thus create space and offer it to viewers who may not experience a feeling of space in their daily lives. The work offers inclusion and creates new spaces of belonging, offering a refreshing chance to breathe.
My studio is a playground in which unstretched canvas and paper on the floor provide the surfaces for forms to appear. I am the dancer, using my body to direct energy onto the canvas and create form. My favorite is working in large-scale, being engulfed by the piece I am working on. Artmaking for me is a very physical act. I experiment with different materials on a spectrum between fine art materials and children’s craft materials, toys and found objects. My interest in materials isn’t scienfitic but led by childlike fascination and aesthetic curiosity: for me colors are very potent and I explore their magic. In conjunction to painting I write poetry and have published my own artist book and sticker book of positive affirmations. I am fascinated by the potency of language in creating new realities and bridging the gap between the manifested and the abstract. Saying something brings it into being. In my performative lectures I explore the divine birth of imagery from language, as well as inner states, emotions, color and meditation. I use my voice and projections of my work as well as collected found imagery from the internet to convey a deep message about love, breath and unitedness.
My work functions in creating a new, parallel reality that has more to offer than the common blind reality of suffering. I offer a reality of play, of color and abstraction in which there is nonjudgmental time and space, giving the viewer’s body energy to breathe and let go, reminding them that there is room for everything. Providing space for people to feel is a radical and important act. I am interested in the moment the viewer is left speechless in front of the artwork. It is a moment beyond judgments, when there’s nothing to name, say or ‘figure out’. There’s no me and you, this or that. It’s a moment of pure unitedness and connection: the viewer becomes one with himself, with his breath, with everyone else, with eternity. Everyone is a god.dess and can create their own reality and I’m carrying that political message on.