Merav Ezer

 

Biography

 

Merav Ezer is a multidisciplinary Artist based in New York. She has exhibited sculpture, video, installation and prints, in New York and worldwide. As a sculptor Merav draws inspiration from interdisciplinary subjects such as architecture, technology and the mundane domesticity. She addresses questions, of nomadic displacement, exploring the human behavior (condition) human technology interaction, current futurology, and the spiritual elements of nature.

 

Born in Tel-Aviv, Israel, Merav Ezer earned her B.ED degree in Art Education at Beit-Berel College School of the Arts. She also studied Plastics at Shenkar College, Israel, and took several advanced courses at the school of Visual Arts, NY. She has participated in several residencies such as the Makor Artists-in Residency program, Virginia Art Center, and ETC. In June 2007 Merav received together with the artist Adi Shniderman the Finishing Funds award, supported by the New York State Council of the Arts.

 

 

Creative Process

 

My artistic work is inspired by a personal conflict between the desire for stability and a nomadic inclination. I am continuously engaged in a self-discussion concerning the factors that make a place to become my home. In spite of living in an apartment, I feel as if I am living in an impermanent tent that is constantly changing. However, the mere fact is that most of us live in transitory shelters, and pay rent or mortgage. Moreover, these structures could collapse as a consequence of a natural disaster, terror attacks, or political changes, emphasizing their temporary nature. Thus, what we perceive as permanent is in many ways fragile. In my work I search for modes of protection, trying to propose new forms for ‘homelessness’. I am trying to explore both emotional and physical shelters reflecting the body’s boundaries. My projects, simultaneously explore three aspects of containers and shells: the body, the living space (as an extension of the body), and nature. I focus on architectural elements to create a dialogue between the inside and the outside, highlighting displacement, rootlessness, transitional communities, and the quest for a shelter. I emphasize the delicate external coverings that act as a partition between the skin and the world. In addition, I investigate the idea of skin as a membranous tissue suggestive of an inner substance.

 

My work relies on research of nomadic structures and the ways those structures turn into a contemporary context of displacement and new ‘Nomadism’. It is architecture based, from self-guided books of do it yourself and home improvements.

 

Nomads Land is a site specific installation I made in 2006 ,part of the Home Base project. In this project I built four models of nomadic structures installed together with guided building information printed on transparencies. Nomads Land was a way for me to investigated concepts of home by from various nomadic traditions—the Yurt from Mongolia, the Neolithic English House, and an early Japanese shelter. It was installed as an informative, poetic space, a remembrance room, highlighting nature, community, questioning questions of migration, stability, and home. for this installation I used two books; Shelter by Shelter Publication and Built Your Own Yurt- by P.R. King, 1997

 

 

 

 

contact: www.meravezer.com