ABOUT HAGIT SHAHAL
Hagit was born and raised in Tel Aviv. ... From 1969 to 1972, Hagit studied art at the Free Academy in The Hague, Netherlands, after which she returned to Israel. She has since then lived and worked in Tel Aviv. She studied lithography and screen printing with the artist Alima Rita in 1977-1978.
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
Hagit Shahal was born in 1950 and was primarily inspired by the 1960s. In the art world, a multitude of significant changes were also taking place. Pop Art, embodying the culture of mass media through the works of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann, was gradually breaking down the foundations on which the creation and reception of art were built. Drawing from the imagery of popular culture and mass consumerism, the Pop Artists rejected the authority of highbrow art and created a ground-breaking movement, while Minimalism, simultaneously appearing, was rejecting any form of emotional manifestation and focused on art’s theoretical features – aiming for pure visual responses. Historically established in the context of the Cold War, the 1960s epitomize an extremely influential era which generated an important number of disruptions and questioned the order of all things. In Europe, The Iron Curtain and the Berlin wall would eternally mark people and beliefs, while in the U.S, predicaments such as the Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam war would forever influence generations to come. From education to gender issues and ideologies, a re-definition of social standards in Western society followed, with ground-breaking values and movements emerging in a cradle of innovation. Simplicity and an void of emotions were key concepts in the highly influential movement of Minimalism, represented by artists such as Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Agnes Martin. Bored of the gestural elements of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalist artists focused on delivering artworks mainly gathering polished, pure lines and geometrical elements. The very first flourishing of Conceptualism was highly influenced by the simplicity of Minimalism but went further in rejecting all pre-existing conceptions inherent to art, similarly to what Pop Artists were trying to achieve by uplifting popular culture to the status of high art. Digging further into some of the concepts inherent to Abstract Expressionism, artists such as Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Helen Frankenthaler practiced Colour Field Painting – strongly relating to Minimalism, with an essentially ruled-based approach, devoid of any emotional aspect. Several schools of philosophy profoundly influenced creatives, Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti were artists heavily seduced by the ideas of Existentialism, who achieved worldwide fame through their depiction of the human form and the lament often associated with the human condition. Internationally, an important number of art movements echoed with the radical changes of the 1960s, often prone to their own regional distinctions. In Italy, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni created Spatialism, while in Germany, the Zero group embraced similar ideas under the leadership of Günther Uecker.
SOURCE: https://www.artland.com/artists/hagit-shahal
QUOTE BY HAGIT SHAHAL
Passion and emotion are the forces that motivate me – the starting point of my creative journey.
WHAT I WISH FOR YOU TODAY
To find a starting point to whatever you dream. To then, (in the words of Norman Vincent Peale, “Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow.”