Kamel's and Balabin's works ask to give back a fragmented portrait of our society through a provocative, surrealistic and gender fluid approach.
Merav Kamel and Halil Balabin are an artist duo based in Kibbutz Ein Gedi, working together since 2012. Their artistic practices arise out of their collective intuition: They follow their instincts toward the creation of works that fuse nonsense and humor with history, sexuality and fantasy.
Their interdisciplinary practice shifts from different techniques working with materials like wood, metal, fabric, paper and more into site-specific installations.
The metal works exhibited at sonneundsolche start as two dimensional works – a kind of silhouettes of circus figures, expressive, almost expressionistic – and become sculptures in a process they have called ‘blurry’ and even ‘stupid’ – a reference to the freedom from judgment they hope to lend themselves while working toward its final stage. Once they think they might be there, they step back and analyze what the work is ultimately trying to say.
Kamel and Balabin works ask to give back a fragmented portrait of our society through a provocative, surrealistic and gender fluid approach.
Merav Kamel (*1988, Tel Aviv) and Halil Balabin (*1987, Jerusalem) live and work in Ein Gedi.
Recent solo exhibitions include Big Lake, PRÁM Gallery, Prague (2019), Bauchnabel, PM Gallery, Düsseldorf (2018), Noun, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (2018), Amba, Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2017)
