Maya Cohen Levy (born 1955),"Maya Cohen Levy /Israel : "Under The Surface " (Photo und Videoart)"
art-in-berlin.de, 2008. Retrieved 25 November 2008. also known as Maya Cohen-Levy, is an Israeli painter and sculptor.

Life and work

Maya Cohen Levy was born in Tel Aviv. She studied philosophy at Tel Aviv University from 1973 to 1974. From 1975 to 1979, she pursued advanced studies at the High School for Art in Tel Aviv. In 1983, she went to Japan to study

calligraphy Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...

and sumi-e painting. Heavily pregnant in 1984, she was told by a senior artist in the Kalisher School of Art, "You'll never be an artist now." She said this made her feel terrible, but also strengthened: "We were operating in a male environment, in a culture that believed that the great artists are men. It doesn't matter what your feminist views were, in the end you were left with that. The way to success was to adopt that attitude and not to be a mother. Women who wanted to enter the field had to be like that."Gilerman, Dana
"The birth of a new generation"
haaretz.com. Retrieved 25 November 2008. In the 1980s, after gaining a stipend to work at a center in the United States, she said that she would attend with her daughter, and was sent rules, which included "no children or pets". She initially believed that she had to make the choice between motherhood and a career as an artist, but became one of the few women artists at that time who decided that motherhood was compatible with being an artist. Women artists of the previous generation had either chosen not to have children, or left children with others to look after, such as Lea Nikel, whose daughter lived in a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

. Very few women were art school teachers and those who were did not have children. 1994-5, she studied

Beijing, China } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. In 2000, she had an exhibition ''Ponds 1995-2000'', sponsored by The Nelford Foundation, at Tel Aviv Museum of Art."Show events"
museum.com. Retrieved 25 November 2008. The paintings used the theme of ponds in various forms. In 2002, she was one of the 10 Israeli artists invited to participate in the first seminar of Ma'aseh Hoshev (Informed Creations), under the auspice of the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies (SIJS).Halpern, Orly

''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...

'', 13 December 2002. Retrieved from Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 25 November 2008. The aim of the project was to connect Talmudic knowledge with artistic creation. Levy's contribution addressed the Israel-Palestinian conflict with the superimposition of a text from the bible onto the statement made by an arrested Palestinian man. In 2006, her painting ''Roots'' (right) was sold at Sotheby's, whose catalogue notes said: :The densely worked brush strokes of Cohen Levy's paintings refer to the organic and the geometric but are influenced by Islamic ornamentation as well as the American Abstract Expressionist movement. She had painted other works with the same title 2000–2002. The characteristic of her work is a complexity of paint streaks, which have used organic images such as the honeycomb, the palm tree and the sunflower, where her discovery of the golden spiral organisation of the plant's seeds led to an exploration of the Islamic tradition, which counterbalanced her initial influence from

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

and resulted in depictions of upside-down trees, whose branches thus appear to be roots.Aviv, Naomi
"Painting is a miracle"
mayacohenlevy.com. Retrieved 9 December 2008. Her work includes paintings, sculptures, installations and books in collaboration with writers and poets. She has taught for 25 years in schools including Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem and the Kalisher Art School in Tel Aviv. Levy lives in Tel Aviv.

Exhibitions

* Tel Aviv Museum of Art * Israel Art Museum in Jerusalem

Awards

* Ministry of Culture and Education in Israel * Dan Sandel Sculpture Award in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art * The Painting Award of the Israel Art Museum in Jerusalem

Collections

* Tel Aviv Museum * The Jewish Museum, New York

Life and work

Exhibitions

Awards

Collections

Notes and references

Further reading