Ruth Horam

Ruth Horam (Hebrew: רות הורם; born 1931, Tel Aviv) is an Israeli painter and sculptor.[1] Horam is a resident of Jerusalem.

Biography

Ruth Horam was born in Tel Aviv. She is a graduate of Saint Martin's School of Art, London. In 1960 she won the UNESCO Prize for Painting, in Paris.[1] She was married to Yehuda Horam, who served as Israeli ambassador to Switzerland.[2]

Between 1964 and 1967 she chaired the Jerusalem Association of Painters and Sculptors. In 1969 she travelled to Seoul, S. Korea where she studied the art of calligraphy, returning to Israel in 1973. In 1983 she was Guest-Artist at 'Arabia' Ceramics in Finland. In 1996 she received the MASTO Foundation grant for Creativity.[1]

Horam has held numerous one-woman shows in Israel and around the world. Horam says that "an exhibition offers exposure. I don't work for the drawer – I want to be seen. My message is neither political nor social, but aesthetic. I don't want to scare or shock through my art. And yes, I am a political creature, I go to demonstrations. But in my work I first of all want to show myself. It's a very egoistic need: to enjoy what I do and what I show, I have to like the product and I want others around to like it too. But the latter is secondary."

Art career

Ruth Horam sculpture

Since 1993, Horam has worked at the Jerusalem Printing Workshop. Her monotype prints are developed from multi-layered freely printed meshes. In the process she interposes various materials such as paper cuttings, leaves, twigs, scraps of fabric, nature or urban landscape photos. Her works are conceived and done in groups following a theme, each print being a unique creation.

Horam has produced environmental sculptures in Jerusalem and other parts of the country. Some of her work is carried out collaboration with sculptor Magdalena Hefetz. Horam's focal point is ecology and recycling, using such materials as old car parts.[3]

Among other public art works are a ceramic wall at Be'er Sheva Municipal Library (1992), a mural at the Marshall Center at the Jerusalem Gates Building (1999), colored metal wall sculpture on the outer walls of Jerusalem buildings – at the Hebrew University, School of Arts and Sciences, the Beit Safafa High School, and an environmental sculpture in colored metal at Yovel School at Givat Masua.

Horam has also designed book covers, including the cover design for books of poetry by her husband, Israeli ambassador Yehuda Horam, who died in 2002.

Works by Horam have been purchased by the Israel Museum and the Tel Aviv Museum, and part of the Ayala Sachs collection, the Stanley Batkin collection, New York, and the Bernschweik Family collection, Switzerland.

Speaking at the opening of an exhibit of her work at the Jerusalem Theater in 1996, the chief curator of the Israel Museum, Yigal Zalmona said: "No matter where [Horam] was she always grasped that which was most significant about the place. Korea connected her with the mystical aspects of the Far East. When in Finland she was taken with the whiteness of the place, as though feeling an organic bond with nature and the environment. And there is of course Jerusalem. For me she is a kind of visual poet."

See also

References

External links