Hagit Shahal

Hagit was born and raised in Tel Aviv. Her father, Moshe Shahal, was an activist in the Betar movement in Poland, and immigrated to Israel on his own as a teenager, before World War II. Her mother, Mina Shahal, also immigrated to Israel from Poland as a young child. Hagit's father was a lawyer, and her mother was a teacher.

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. She participated in two engraving workshops at Crown Point Press in San Francisco between 2010 and 2012.[1]

From 1989 to 1991, Hagit worked as a courtroom sketch artist for ABC News in Israel, illustrating trials that were of interest to the foreign media. In 1991-1996, she worked as a courtroom sketch artist for Israel TV's Channel 2. In those capacities, she captured images from the John Demjanjuk trial and the Yigal Amir trial.

Between 1992 and 2000, Hagit worked for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, where she illustrated the front pages of the weekend magazine, Hamusaf LeShabbat. The first person she depicted was Dahn Ben-Amotz, followed by the playwright, Hanoch Levin. She also painted portraits of Israeli politicians, including Aryeh Deri, Ehud Barak, David Levy, Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Liberman, and Haim Ramon, as well as portraits of foreign political figures such as Bill Clinton, Hassan Nasrallah, Slobodan Milošević, King Hussein, and others.

Since 1975, Hagit has been teaching painting and drawing in different frameworks, including the Kalischer Art School in Tel Aviv, the Meimad School of Visual Arts in Tel Aviv, the Painters and Sculptors Association in Tel Aviv, the Arsuf workshop in Rishpon, and at her studio in Tel Aviv.

She was one of the founders of Impact, which is a non-profit organization established in 2002 by the Association of Visual Artists in Israel.[2] She served as a board member until 2008.

In 2015, she joined the Association for Women's Art and Gender Research in Israel, founded by Dr. Ruth Markus, and was elected as a member of the board of Directors, of which she is a member today.

After completing her studies and returning to Israel, Hagit's works were abstract and conceptual. She later began drawing images of objects and people borrowed from her world and her immediate surroundings, severing them from their natural environment and drawing them out of their anonymity.

Coupled with those works, and throughout her career, Hagit has been engaged in painting portraits. Like many other artists, she, too, has repeatedly reverted to making self-portraits at different creative junctures, constituting a kind of complex journey that deals with essence, identity, mood, and state of mind.

The processed themes are stored, and they come back and appear later in her various paintings. In recent years, Hagit has made extensive use of engraving techniques and monotyping.

2019     Hey, gimme a smile, Raanana city Gallery, curator: Orna Fichman (cat.)

2018     I Feel Pretty, Artspace Tel Aviv, curator: Nir Harmat

2018     Friday the 13th, Artspace Tel Aviv

2017     Little Women, Tel Aviv Artists' House, curator: Nir Harmat

2015 Self-Portrait, Levinsky College of Education gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Arie Berkowitz

2015 Creep, Exhibition wall, Artspace Tel Aviv, curator: Nir Harmat

2015 Faded Lovers, Office in Tel Aviv Gallery, Tel Aviv, curators: Irit Levin and Rachel Sukman (cat.)

2011 Double Trouble, Apart. Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Rotem Ritov

2010 Through beauty | Hagit Shahal & Ilona Ahron, the Artists' House, Tel Aviv, curator: Irit Levin

2010 Dowry. Inspiration, Stern Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Nir Harmat (catalog)

2009 Who's Who, Micky Tiroche Fine Arts, London

2008 Israel through Portraits, the National Museum of Slovakia, Bratislava, curator: Tanya Sternson (cat.)

2008 Cartography; Scale 6.2:1, Art Wall Project on the Artists' House's facade, Tel Aviv, curator: Nir Harmat

2006 Seeing Me, Seeing You, Montefiore Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Irit Levin (cat.)

2003 French Manicure, Sara Erman Gallery, Tel Aviv

2000 New Works, Sara Erman Gallery, Tel Aviv

1997 Oil Paintings, Neve Tsedek Gallery, Tel Aviv, text: Talia Rapaport (cat.)

1993 Ornaments, Nelly Aman Gallery, Tel Aviv

1992 Oil Paintings, Arsuf Art Gallery, Rishpon, Israel, text: Gideon Ofrat (cat.)

1988 Drawings, Sara Levi Gallery, Tel Aviv

1987 New Works, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv

1985 Paintings, Sara Levi Gallery, Tel Aviv

1985 Paintings, the Artists' House, Jerusalem

1984 Galerie Jean-Pierre Lavignes, Paris

1984 Portraits, Tatrama Gallery, Tel Aviv

1983 New Works, Sara Levi Gallery, Tel Aviv

1975 Works on Paper, Debel Gallery, Jerusalem

2019     Portrait of a Mother, Tel Aviv Artists' House, curators: Irit Levin and Dr. Dorit Kedar

2019     Her Dress, Her Symbol: Antea Revisited, Agripas 12, Jerusalem, curators: Rita Mendes-Flohr and Nomi Tannhauser

2019     Locally, the Artists House Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, curator: Gabi Yair

2018     Women Painting Landscape, Tel Aviv Artists' House, curators: Dr. Ruth Markus and Ruty Chinsky

2018     Hanky & Powder Puff, Nulubaz cooperative space for contemporary art

2018     Law and Art, Israel Supreme Court in Jerusalem, curator: Dr. Orna Yair

2017     9 X Artist Wall, Artspace Tel Aviv, curator: Nir Harmat

2017     The Double Mirror, Beit-Rosentalis, Jaffa, curator: Irit Levin

2016     9 X Artist Wall, Artspace Tel Aviv, curator: Dalia Danon

2016 Body Of Work, Artspace Tel Aviv, curator: Galit Rauchwerger

2016 Then and Now, Sara Erman Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Sara Erman

2015 Flowers, Sara Erman Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Mira Cedar

2015 Woman – Many Faces, Raanana city Gallery, Israel, curator: Orna Fichman (cat.)

2015 Following Collections, the Art Workshop Gallery of Yavne, Israel, curator: Irit Levin (cat.)

2014 International Juried Print Exhibition, New Grounds gallery, Albuquerque, U.S.A

2014 Ode to a Woman, Office in Tel Aviv Gallery, curator: Rachel Sukman

2013 Not-Book, Beit Ha'ir Urban culture museum, Tel Aviv, curator Guy Morag

2012 Me and Other Animals, the Artists House, Tel Aviv, curator: Nurit Zilberger

2011 To See Rock 'n Roll, the Artists House, Tel Aviv, curators: Irit Levin and Arie Berkowitz (cat.)

2011 Kav / Ketem / Ot, Light House Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Galit Rauchwerger

2010 Objects of Desire, Stern Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Galit Rauchverger

2010 Variations on Studio, Dan Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Irit Levin (cat.)

2009 Every Monday and Thursday, the Etching Workshop, the Artists' House, Tel Aviv

2008 Time Tunnel, the Municipal Gallery of Art, Givatayim, Israel, curator: Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, text: Gideon Ofrat (cat.)

2007 Viewing the Portrait, Danon Gallery, Tel Aviv, curators: Dalia Danon and Irit Levin, text: Nir Harmat

2007 Abie Nathan – Man of Peace, the Art Workshop Gallery of Yavne, Israel, curator: Roni Reuven (cat.)

2006 Israeli Artists, the National Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava, Slovakia

2005 LeHaim, The Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, curator: Hana Kofler (book)

2005 Tel Aviv Profile, facade of Tel Aviv's City Hall Building, curators: Kethy Bar and Udi Rosenwein (book)

2003 Regarding Beauty, Stern Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Debi Luzia

1996 Healing the Breach, Yadayim Gallery, Jaffa, Israel, curators: Vered Shomron and Iris Nadel (cat.)

1994 Encounter, Tuyap Exhibition Center, Istanbul, curator: Doron Polak

1994 Dialogue, Bad Kissingen, Germany, curator: Doron Polak

1991 44 Laila, Frauen Museum, Bonn, Germany

1991 Identity Card, the Artists' House, Tel Aviv, curator: Sorin Heller (cat.)

1988 Shame, Rega Gallery, Tel Aviv

1988 Haifa: Portrait of a City, Haifa Museum of Modern Art, Israel, curator: Ilana Teicher (cat.)

1984 Black Exhibition, Dizengoff Center, Tel Aviv, curator: Ziva Ron

1976 7 Artists, Hakibbutz Gallery, Tel Aviv

1975 Young Artists 1975, Julie M. Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator: Amnon Barzel

• Vered Lee: " In One of Tel Aviv's Shadiest Areas, Turning Stripping Into Art - Hagit Shahal"
• " The artist website"
• Dr. Ruth Marcus: "Hagit Shahal's Wild Background" - published in Erev Rav
• Alicia Shahaf: A review of the exhibition "Double Trouble"
• The artist's book " Avigail My Teacher"
• Hagit Shahal's entry in the Israel Museum's online Information Center for Israeli Art