David Gerstein
David Gerstein is widely considered to be one of the most creative and innovative artists in the world today.
He has exhibited extensively at international venues in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Rome, Singapore, New York, and Tel Aviv; and the list goes on.
He belongs to a group of painters, all top craftsmen, whom you come across, and whose expanding body of work - increasingly filling the country - is worthy of close scrutiny.
It is difficult to think of another artist like David Gerstein, whose work in recent years has gained such prominence on the local scene. Some of his works have been chosen to appear on huge billboards, as human and aesthetic images that aim to catch the eye and engage the heart, and to promote companies like Isracard and the First International Bank.
His monumental statues adorn Israeli cities; a playground of his invention continues to delight the children of Jerusalem; the Hebrew University ordered an ambitious and challenging project from Gerstein: the design of various statues which will symbolize - based on criteria of good taste, common sense and a high level of communication - the various University institutions and faculties; a television show has chosen to decorate its broadcasting studio with his works, in the hope that the pieces' tremendous popularity will attract viewers to the show.
David Gerstein is an Israeli painter and sculptor. Particularly interested in making work that speaks to the art world while remaining accessible to the public, Gertsein is known for his large-scale public installation, the largest of which, Momentum, is located in Singapore. Born in 1944 in Jerusalem, Israel, Gerstein studied art following the completion of his military service, first at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and then at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At the age of 26, Gerstein returned to Israel and taught at Bezalel, first in the drawing and then the jewelry design department. In the 1970s, Gerstein’s paintings—watercolor and gouache on paper—mainly consisted of figurative scenes of his childhood, and explored the motif of bicycles, which recurs in his later work. Over the next two decades, he experimented with sculpture, utilizing metalwork and bright colors, while retaining his interest in painting and drawing. Gerstein lives and works in Jerusalem, Israel.
As a painter and a sculptor (and one of Israel's most famous modern artists), David Gerstein seeks to expand the limits of two-dimensional paintings into three-dimensional sculptures. His easily recognizable artistic colorful syntax has found its place in private homes and collections, as well as public spaces around the world. His works have been given by Israel's Foreign Ministry to heads of state around the world.
