Ron Chen is an Israeli artist working and living in Israel. Chen’s work employs western painting tradition to look at the current human condition evolving around the need to become an image, to belong through the making and consumption of imagery. Ron explores themes of belongingness, artificiality, and the absurd. Ron’s drawings, the human condition is seen as a farcical phenomenon on a stage, binding comedy with tragedy to display human existence as an artificial, absurd experience.

Chen’s work has been the subject of solo shows at Hezi Cohen Gallery (Tel Aviv), Over The Influence Gallery (Bangkok) and BJ project space (Miami) and most recently, a duo show in London (Hurst Contemporary), as well as numerous group shows, most notably The Petach Tikva Museum, The Steinbardt Museum, The Drawing Biennale of Jerusalem, The Rothschild Center and Rosenfeld Gallery in Tel Aviv, among many others. In 2022, Ron was awarded The Eugen Kolb prize by The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and his works were acquired to the Museum collection.

‘Who are you?

I’m Ron, Israeli, Jewish, father, and I really love painting.

What is your creative area of expertise?

Drawing and Painting.

How do you find inspiration?

I am deeply inspired by the works of the old masters, I can sometimes look at a painting and know exactly what I want to do next.. it always feel like a live conversation when it happens, as if I am being asked an intelligent question and I just really want to answer it.

Tell us a little bit about the work you chose to share?

The drawing I donated comes from the album ‘Bathers-Entertainers’ In which I play with the character of the bather, in a theatrical setting as if it is part of a show. I love to work with iconic subjects and themes such as the bather- a subject so charged with painting’s history, but also with such a psychological charge that I find very relevant to our times.

What is your work process?

Sometimes I start off by copying a figure from an old master’s piece, or from an image I find online, and then I improvise and invent most of the composition around it. I almost always combine observation with imagination.

One special moment that happened to you this year?

My first son was born 4 months ago, and it changed my life for good. I feel it also changed something about my motivation to painting which became more tuned and sincere.

A piece of Advice?

I keep on encouraging myself in my heart: “feel more, think less”. It always amazes me how devine intuition is, like a superpower.. and it’s not easy to do, but I wish I could always be led by intuition.

What’s next for you?

I am working towards a solo show in NY later on this year, and I have another project in NY in 2027. But most of all, I am working on balancing raising a baby with the studio, which is not easy but definitely worth it.’