Idyll Distortion | Distorted Idyll were two solo exhibitions by Ilya Medvedev and Ilan Yona, presented in a shared space, both exploring distortion and idyll from complementary perspectives.
Ilya Medvedev presented large oil paintings depicting everyday situations, routines, and seemingly idyllic moments. Yet Medvedev’s idyll contains within it a distortion that re-examines its very nature.
In this way, the artist challenged common assumptions and raised deeply political, social, and personal questions. His figures gaze out from moments that could be preserved in a family photo album, which is where their power lies. They look, observe, and return our gaze.
Medvedev created a mirror-like situation in which his figures appear unaware of their own state, reflecting it onto the viewer. Who is observing whom? Who is critiquing whom?
In contrast, with humor and self-awareness, Ilan Yona created video works and color prints that celebrated capitalism. Yona highlighted social and moral distortion by deconstructing visual narratives and skillfully using cinematic language.
He created from nothing, constructing a hyper-reality flooded with worn-out images and cinematic clichés. Yona multiplied his own image, shifting between characters and roles drawn from a fantastical, idyllic world. He embodied the good, the bad, and the ugly simultaneously.
Yona explored a world where distortion occurs as an excessive, pleasure-seeking, nihilistic, capitalist celebration entirely devoid of moral reference a world in which distortion itself is idyllic.
Ilan Yona and Ilya Medvedev are graduates of Hamidrasha- Faculty of arts (Yona 2008, Medvedev 2010). Both were selected from a large group of candidates to participate in the ST-ART Incubator project founded by Serge Tiroche, part of a comprehensive program supporting emerging artists. Idyll Distortion | Distorted Idyll were their first exhibitions at the ST-ART.
Curators: Serge Tiroche & Liora Belford