Tavalina, Rinat Kishony, was born in Haifa, Israel in 1966. She graduated from the Israel Institute of Technology in 1992 with a Bachelor of Architecture, and later moved to Tel Aviv, where she worked for several years. During this time she won a competition to re-design the multimedia museum dedicated to the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ben Gurion. After a personal crisis in her 30th year, she began to paint. Rinat abandoned architecture and devoted herself to her art.
“Nothing can surpass the moment where creativity takes over, leading me on a journey where the infinite starts, time stands still, and creation is endless.”
At the same time, she embarked on a thrilling journey of personal discovery. She left Israel and set off, traveling the world – from India to Costa Rica to Guatemala to Italy. After ten years abroad, Rinat returned to Israel with her family, where she continues painting and presenting her work, as well as teaching art.
Rinat is beautifully articulate about her complex, multilayered creative process - achieved not with a brush, but primarily with a palette knife. This allows her constructive approach - the build up - and, eventually, the destructive approach of reduction and removal to achieve the final result. She notes: “The white canvas, for me, is the embodiment of freedom: it contains an infinite number of possibilities. That is why, at the beginning of the creative process, I must explore a topic, a question, define the rules of the game, and thus limit the boundaries of my process. A conversation then arises between my internal feelings and what is materializing on the canvas, like a continuous melody.”
“I love the power of color, and my creative process alternates between different contrasts – spontaneous vs. exact work, cold vs. warm colors, fast vs. slow, opaque vs. transparent, and a constructive vs. destructive process. Gradually I search for a new balance, a new order. The paintings are constructed in layers, in a constant movement of exploration on the edge of a cliff. I try to find in me the consent to get lost, to meet the unknown, to destroy - then appears discovery and surprise, and the finished paintings are vivid and full of energy.”
Aviel, Israel. 2020. Acrylic on canvas
My House, Red Still Life
It is easy to admire Tavalina’s still life scenes for their mastery of line and color, but it’s important to note the feelings expressed: there is a wistful sense of isolation and slight disjointedness - of being on a tilted, angular plan physically and emotionally.
She clearly expresses through these detailed, abstracted interiors her own work both to lose herself and to find herself, to search for her balance and to create her order through art.
Aviel, Israel. 2020. Acrylic on canvas
Tel-Aviv, Beach
The richly layered arrangement of this scene underpins Tavalina’s considered approach to building a composition. Her additive process -creating registers and layers of paint and color - results in an abstracted, almost geometric, framework.
Overlain on this structure is exuberant color, and a sense of both motion and stillness. Note the mirroring of the choppy sea and the blue fabric, dancing in the wind.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2020. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Tel-Aviv
Although we are more accustomed to seeing landscapes and interiors in her oeuvre, Tavalina here surprises us with her interpretation of a bustling urban scene.
There is a quickness here, of line and of color, which echoes and underlines the rapid pace of the city she is capturing. Moments of connection are there for the seeking - including engaging with the guitarist walking toward us on the lower right.
Aviel, Israel. 2018. Acrylic on canvas
Near My House
A painter known for her rich use of bold color, Tavalina achieves a remarkably different effect with a more restrained palette, as shown in this canvas.
A quieter, more intimate atmosphere - one suffused with calm - is the subject here, the golden tones imbuing a sense of warmth. Even the title, “Near My House”, implies familiarity, affection, and connection.
Aviel, Israel. 2020. Acrylic on canvas
Tel Aviv, Palm Trees
Tavalina’s architectural training gives her an unusual and valuable vantage point as a painter; her intuitive understanding of the built environment allows her to “sketch” in vivid detail with her palette knife the diversity of the buildings around her.
Yet there is a quiet and contemplative mood here - devoid of people, this corner of the city exists in concrete and stone - yet is framed by exuberantly expressive nature in shades of green.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2020. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
My House, Yellow Still Life
Tavalina has described her painting process as “the essence of her life, as an endless journey of research and discovery”. That journey clearly begins for her in interiority, and in contemplation, before expanding outward.
This lends a poignancy to her domestic still lifes, views she has created or noticed within her home. Explorations in this series focus on blocks of color: warm, intimate, and grounded.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2020. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Jerusalem
There’s a delightfully and boldly casual approach to the sacred and weighty landscape in this work: almost breezily titled Jerusalem, as though that were any other city, Tavalina explores here an angular view of the literal coming together of the natural and built environments.
Above those right angles of convergence rises a gilded dome, both above and embedded within both of the discrete settings.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2020. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Jerusalem, Dome of the Rock
The literal creation of this canvas: the quick sketches, the deeply considered and built-up blocks of color, the almost chaotic composition - echo the vitality and energy of the city it depicts.
Layered, multicolored, disjointed, dense, Tavalina has captured the spirit of Jerusalem and dropped the viewer within it. Yet she doesn’t doom us to be lost - she pulls back, just enough, to show us the great domes which orient us in this labyrinthine city.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2020. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Rome
The storied city of Rome has been examined here by Tavalina, and both reduced to and celebrated for its parts: the literal building blocks of the urban fabric, rendered in swatches of bold color, and confronting the viewer with its scale and vastness.
The sheer heft of the unpeopled buildings and bridges creates space for the viewer to imagine; Rome has become both a setting and an invitation for exploration and discovery.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2019. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Winter Lake, Aviel
While a paint brush gives greater control to an artist, the palette knife - with its rigid, sharp edges - allows the painter greater freedom to “sculpt” the paint into dynamic forms.
Note here how the surface of the landscape - the mountains, the lakes, the fields - have an almost three dimensional texture, each stroke creating a shape distinct from its neighbor but melding into a unified, abstracted whole.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2019. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
My House, Blue and Yellow
The still life has been a classic topic for generations of painters - yet Tavalina brings, as ever, a fresh and unique approach to this subject. The angular composition shows both a mastery of line, as well as creates a slightly unsettled feeling as the viewer orients herself in the space.
Then, unexpectedly - there is a sunny center of warmth at the heart of the composition - a surprising burst of joy.
AVIEL, ISRAEL. 2019. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Italy
Tavalina has repeatedly stressed her physical connections to the natural environment, both personally and in her work. Her “years of wandering” have allowed her to be both participant and observer, attached and detached.
Those feelings are clearly expressed in this canvas: disjointed blocks of contrasting colors are initially startling, and then - as the viewer’s eye grows more comfortable - harmonious.
