HIGH by Omri Koresh

On 1.6.23, the Israeli and Tribal Art Gallery in Tel Aviv will open the High exhibition of artist Omri Koresh.

Curator of the exhibition, Naomi Gordon-Chen

In the exhibition “High,” Koresh, a provocative artist and creator, exposes us to his escapist world as he interprets it. Using oil paintings, Koresh seeks to invite us into his inner world and reveal a part of it to us. Beauty and fantasy colors allow the viewer to wander into new and aesthetically pleasing precincts. In the realm of alternative reality that Koresh is building there is a place and an invitation for everyone. The exhibition emphasizes the place and power of art in Koresh’s life as a survival element, one that gives life. The reality for him is predictable and uninteresting. His mind is always working and he is only looking for what interests him.

Koresh has a kicking, cutting edge. The piece helps him escape the monotonous, boring reality. Koresh is in a place that sparks imagination, passions and emotions. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s inner dialogue between ideal and reality, between escape from reality and the place he wants to be, as well as the desire to make people live in High, in a fantastic, modern, commercial, clean and full world. Day-to-day tinkering and rest. Be happy and enjoy his art. “Look at my art and step outside of reality. Be on high. Instead of high, high, high, high.”

Many Renaissance artists were known as lovers of their own kind, even if they did not explicitly say so, and having powerful patrons protected them from the Inquisition’s persecution. A tour around the world’s great museums and galleries reveals that gay art is hiding in a closet. From the Louvre, through the Met and the Guggenheim, to the TEL Aviv Museum of Art, FINE art is produced by HOMOSEXUALS, but not displayed in this way. Even if there is any mention of anything, it is minor and minor.

Koresh directed his exhibition to Pride Month. Question: Why is it important to celebrate Pride Month? He replied: ‘I’m a gay artist. Pride Month is for me. The content of my art comes from this world. That’s my identity. This is where I feel comfortable and it represents me. I can make art proud. Gay people understand my mindset. They see the archetypes I like to use. My personal feeling is that my brain thinks differently because I have a difference because of the definition of my sexuality.

Koresh is inspired by his work and the world of gaming. Koresh is a longtime art director with

13 years of experience in graphic design and two-dimensional art; has years of experience in creative management roles.

Team-leading capabilities and evolving gameplay. He is involved in overseeing art-driven cross-platform games, and as such he loves to play. Koresh takes elements from the world of games and his personal language and creates his personal stuff. He likes topics that are seemingly light – hearted but have meaning and substance.

Koresh was inspired by a number of artists including Jeff Koons, an American sculptor and painter known for his reproductions of relatively banal objects. Koresh loves the humor in his work and he makes things that he himself really likes. Pop icons balloon and sometimes nonsense and it is a pleasure for him to look at the works and see high art that has charted the world. Will Cotton is an American painter whose work mostly depicts landscapes composed of candy, often populated by human themes, some of them touching on the LGBT community. Mikael Lack is a phenomenal California artist, gloomy, depressed, sad. His themes are twisted, the aggression bordering on the grotesque. He’s unapologetic, he’s unapologetic and he doesn’t sugarcoat his reality. Koresh is thrilled with every new painting he makes.

Three main occupations stand out in Koresh’s paintings: the female figure, the rich color scheme. And fantastic characters. A second look at his work shows additional layers of intimate moments that entail a great yearning to be somewhere else. To live another life. His technique is similar to classical art. He invites models into the studio, photographs them and digitally paints the painting. He then copies the sketch into canvas and finishes it with oil. Every painting is as accurate as the surgeon’s knife. Koresh creates a different and unique language and world.

Koresh was born with a girl’s face and a man’s body. He likes to dress up and dress up. His facial structure allows him to wear heavy make-up. It’s a facet of his personality. In his works of art he produces men and women in their archetypes or mixes them indiscriminately. His men are all gay and are sex objects. His women are full of depth and interest. For him, the separation of the sexes is merely semantics and he uses it as a visual tool.

Female characters are prominent in Koresh’s colorful paintings. Women symbolize to him softness, wisdom, interest, beauty. He says he compares himself to these characters when it comes to painting women, “that’s how I’d like to be.” Drinking and drinking is a must. He dresses the women in fashion clothes full of wonderful colors, he feels the need to style them, to turn them into a world he would like to belong to, as he wants to be: a world that looks amazing, beautiful, has jewelry and money and all the characters have food. He displays the persona with the pose. The men to him are super sexual and he wants them naked. Their bodies do it and their clothes don’t matter. Men are a product he would want them to belong to him, he doesn’t stop at objectification whether it’s women or men.

Among his works in the exhibition are ‘Good Girl’, ‘It’s Impossible’,’ Loving Her ‘Storytime’,’ Jesus on water’,’ Milk Shake ‘and more.

Koresh is a Shankar graduate in the arts. He has exhibited and participated in several exhibitions, including: at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, at the Plast Gallerie in Berlin, in Taipei. He also exhibited and sold at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. At the Diagleib Hotel, Tel Aviv and most recently at a group exhibition in New York. Koresh presented a solo exhibition with Orly Dvir. While questioning himself and what he wants to do .He published his first book, an illustrated novel called The Black City of Nuerba. He is currently working on turning the book into a comic book and is writing two sequels as a comic.

Naomi Gordon-Chen, Curator