About the artist
 
Moti Penn works in Tel Aviv, where he also designs permanent exhibitions and teaches painting and drawing. He also lectures at The Artistic Creativity Workshop of the School of Architecture, Tel Aviv University.
Moti was born in Petach-Tikva 63 years ago. He served with the IDF (in the Nahal Brigade and the Paratroopers Corps), was a kibbutz member for a time, studied at the Bezalel Art School, Jerusalem, and completed his studies at the London Slade School of Fine Arts.
He has held one-man exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in Israel and abroad and went to Paris, Amsterdam and New York for further studies and to do creative work.
At the start of his career his work was influenced by abstractionism, surrealism and expressionism. In the sixties, during his studies in London, he absorbed the influence of pop-art and later, when he lived and worked in Amsterdam, he exhibited work in which this influence was apparent. He also created a multitude of paintings, reliefs and drawings using mixed and varied techniques.
In the seventies he turned to a more realistic approach and made collages which served as sketches for his oil paintings. This eventually developed into realism and hyper-realism. All his paintings during this period were based on photographs shot by him.
In the eighties his realism evolved into more selective and concise directions, and the influence of conceptual art is clearly prominent in his work. In this period he made and exhibited elaborated drawings, using black and colored pencils.
In the nineties Moti Penn reverted to working on collages, on the basis of which he did drawings in colored pencil on paper – initially in abstract directions and later more figuratively.
Occasionally he “slips” into three-dimensional work and painted reliefs.
At the start of the new millennium, he began making computer-processed graphics based on photographs he had taken. His aim was to produce new three-dimensional objects which appear realistic but are actually virtual. Working from these processed objects, he made large oil paintings.
Today - he works on few directions, painting on large canvas in figurative and realistic style, as well as drawing with colored pencils the collages he created.

One-man exhibitions:
 
1963:  Beit Yad Labanim, Petach Tiqvah.
1965:  Katz Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1966:  Chemerinsky Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1967:  Galerie de Sphinx, Amsterdam.
1972:  New Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1975:  Old Jaffa Gallery.
1983: "Drawing Exhibition", Painters Association, Tel Aviv.
1992: "Behind Realism", Sarah Herman Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1995:   Khan Theater Foyer, Jerusalem.
1996:   Beit Ali Gallery, Ashkelon.
1999: "Occasinal conections", Shlush 30 Gallery, Tel Aviv.
2001: "Virtual Realism", Painters Association, Tel Aviv.
2004 - "It's happening", Beith Gabriel, Kinneret.
2007 - "4 artists, 4 exhebitions", Art Place, Meirov House, Holon
2007 - "Piles and displays", Bernard Gallery, Tel Aviv.
2008 - "Piles and displays", Beith Gabriel, Kinneret.

Group exhibitions:
 
1964:   Holborn Artists, London.
1965:   Young Artists’ Exhibition, Tel Aviv, Museum of Art.
1967: "Four Israeli Artists", Mokum Gallery, Amsterdam.
1969:  Surrealism Exhibition, Painters & Sculptors Association, Tel Aviv.
1969: "Aquarelles 2" Exhibition, Painters & Sculptors Association, Tel Aviv.
1975:   International Art Fair, Basel.
1975:   Helen Rich Gallery, New York.
1981: "Realism", Painters & Sculptors Association, Tel Aviv.
1981: "Realism", Grand Palais, Paris.
1983: "Artist present Artist", Radius Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1989:   Painters & Sculptors Association Exhibition, Migdal Shalom, Tel Aviv.
1992: "Figures", Eked Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1992: "Blue" Exhibition, Painters & Sculptors Association, Tel Aviv.
1994:   Art Focus, Avni Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1995:   Bank Discount, Maccabi Branch, Tel Aviv.
1998: "Circles", Arta Gallery, Tel Aviv.
2002: "Not only balck and white", Ein Hod Art Gallery.