“This house no longer exists….The house went up in flames on October 7 in Hamas’ attack on Be’eri. I went over family photos and chose to focus on a picture of life that deliberately perpetuates the past – the house before the destruction and obliteration…All the people in the painting are well,” she says. “The house in the painting was destroyed, but Sahar is in good condition and the whole family has been staying since the massacre at a hotel on the Dead Sea.”

[Tigist Yoseph Ron’s is winner of the Haim Shiff Prize for figurative-realistic art for 2019. You can find her work featured here at Ha’aretz. The feature includes the image of Shabbat on the Kibbutz the artist’s statement above, and the story of the artist’s family’s immigration from Ethiopia and absorption in Israel. Paintings touch upon family history and community. The reflective place of the image build up the clear outline of bodies + a washed out and unclear sense of time + the close sitting together of people]