Sphinx, 2022

Shay Zilberman is an Israeli collage artist. He lives and works in Jaffa. He acquired his BFA from Beaux-Arts de Paris (with honors), and in 2003 he studied fashion design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Between 2020 and 2022, he was a fellow at Alma, Home for Hebrew Culture in Tel Aviv. In 2024 Zilberman was the recipient of Idud Hayetzira Prize – israeli ministry of culture and sport, In 2021, the Ann and Ari Rosenblatt Prize for Visual Art in Israel, and in 2022, he received the Alima Prize for the Art of Printmaking in Israel.

During the past decade and a half, Zilberman has adopted photography-based handmade collage and printmaking as his main practice. This involves a complex set of strategies, beginning with the search for raw visual materials, hunting for and browsing through albums, photo-books, magazines, and catalogs. All of these publications, although varied in scope, aesthetics, and content, reflect fragments of eclectic visual culture and how it has shaped itself, its desires, and interests through popular travel journeys, leisure, botany, science, how-to literature, and more. By using this pool of print materials, Zilberman creates an alternative imaginary of local histories and aspirations, an encounter between the personal and collective, the nostalgic and contemporary.

Zilberman’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Israel and abroad. Selected solo exhibitions include The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University, Petach Tikva Museum of Arts; Tel Aviv Artists’ House; Inga Gallery, Tel Aviv; Wilfrid Israel Museum of Asian Art and Studies, HaZore'a; and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. In addition, Zilberman has participated in dual and group exhibitions, including Petach Tikva Museum of Arts; Artists’ Studios, Jerusalem; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; PCG galleries, Providence, RI; Haifa Museum of Art; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.

His works are in the collections of the Israel Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum, Petach Tikva Museum of Arts, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, The Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod, and private collections in Israel and abroad.