Or Harpaz - PHROOM

The Surreal and Unreliable Lens of Retrospect // Or Harpaz

A portrait of the artist as a young boy

“Growing up as the youngest out of three it was clear to me at an early stage of my childhood that I didn’t exactly match the ideal evolutionary model I was raised upon. I guess it was easier for me to choose to be an outside observer of that evolution, and not to take it for granted, while still being a part of it; to create critical space.These types of duality or dichotomy are often reflected in my present work”.

The artist is present

“I want to communicate in a way that people can understand. Art should be a mental place that allows people to reflect on what life means for them, and the only thing you need for that is your own personal history. My work is a by-product of the reality of my life. It deals with my personal biography and the collective memory of the society in which I live in, and tie political realty to social realty. It is a function of relationship between place, identity, image and gaze. It defines and marks the vision and language within which the social roles are distributed in relation to a common space of meaning. Creating fiction through imagery that has many roles, doubts and desires; it is a journal of my reverberations, my visual vocabulary, projection of imagination, a figure of my truth whom I try not to have imprisoned by any stereotype. I am trying to keep sociopolitical awareness and to engage with a wide range of subjects. My interests vary and include a lot of things melted to a synthetic work of art: Humor and queer staged and spontaneous, documentary and political, local and international, fake and authentic, illusion and reality, consumerism and gender. These themes are all part of my work, while many different levels of perception are provided. Many polarities coexist, and sense of humor is key. Photography is the tool I use in order to engage with the viewer and implement visions and concerns; to record ideas and reactions to something. I try to filter the world’s noise and create a narrative out of disorder; to convey my point of view in a new cultural space with different politics and new influences, different codes and new languages. Our culture produces codes. Codes produce behavior. And behavior is a language which I then translate to visual imagery, sometimes inexplicably changing my direction, but ever and always conscious of my goals”.

website: OrHarpaz

Instagram: oharpaz

–