Today we’d like to introduce you to the wonderful art of Efrat Merin, another very talented artist in our circle.

Born in 1989 in Tel Aviv, Efrat Merin is a multidisciplinary artist engaged in drawing, painting and filmmaking.

She is currently participating in Turps Studio Programme in London. In 2021, she will be an artist in residence at Kunstnarhuset Messen, Norway. In 2020 she had a solo exhibition at Maya Gallery, Tel Aviv.

Merin’s video work ‘Street’ participated in Harun Farocki and Antje Ehmann’s project Labour in a Single Shot, and has been exhibited in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, House of the World Cultures, Berlin, and Venice Biennale, among other central venues. Her feature film ‘Tel Aviv: Story of a City’ was awarded Best Documentary Feature of Cutting Edge International Film Festival.

This is Efrat in her own words:

‘I am an artist working across multiple mediums, mainly painting, drawing and filmmaking. My works set forth a queer retelling of mythical narratives. Gorgons, witches, hybrids, and hermaphrodites fuse into an image of queer subconsciousness. Nakedness is disengaged from sexuality, binaries of femininity and masculinity are transgressed. Female desire, with its long history of being demonised, is unabashedly celebrated; the female gaze regains its power.

In my recent works, I use the sgraffito technique, in which parts of the surface are scratched and removed, thus exposing the layer underneath. I use cold encaustic paint, which readily accepts every mark. Revealing rather than adding, this archaeological-like process endows the works with a quality of discovery. ‘

Efrat started using Cuní Water Soluble Encaustic quite a while back, and we absolutely love the results. It’s another beautiful example of the versatility of this paint.

Here are 4 recent examples of the work she shared with us:

If you would like to read more about her, you can do so on her website at www.efratmerin.com