Janna Shulrufer
I’m Israeli and international artist. From 1995 I live in Israel and I work in my studio in the city of Zefat, in the Artist’s Colony. I was born in Moscow, where I studied drawing and art history at the Pedagogical University. Also, I studied the technique of etching (dry point) in the Artist’s House in Tel-Aviv.
I work in traditional genres and media, and I’m inspired by life around me. I find inspiration from landscapes, people, street scenes, music and the books I read. Often, I paint from my experiences and emotions, using art to express myself and reflect on the world.
Janna, you have often said that your work is, above all, your personal space and your life. Yet the moment a work leaves the studio; it enters a public arena where meaning becomes plural and fluid. How do you reconcile this intimate origin with the multiplicity of interpretations that inevitably arise once your art begins to live among others?
Indeed, the process of creating a painting is my personal space. The artist's work is a very intimate act for me. I don't like to show the public what and how I do. While working, I need silence and solitude. But I understand that when the work is finished and signed, it comes into life and begins to live its own life. I don't know how people react to my works at international exhibitions. But those who come to my studio share their impressions with me and tell me their versions and their understanding of my works. Sometimes they have very interesting and profound interpretations, unexpected and original treatments. I like it when my work arouses interest in other people and awakens a range of different thoughts and feelings in them. Perhaps this is also the purpose of art.
Your formation is layered: the Moscow academic school, the great collections of the Pushkin and Tretyakov Museums, and later the spiritual landscape of Safed with its mystical resonances. How does this confluence of rigor, tradition, and metaphysical aura find its way into the texture of your imagery, both in technique and in spirit?
If art connoisseurs see in my works rigor, tradition and a metaphysical aura - what you have listed - then for me it is a compliment. Studying and art history books, together with the happy opportunity to see great museum masterpieces with my own eyes - this is priceless baggage that has accompanied me all my life. The aura of ancient Safed, in my opinion, harmoniously complements my previous experience of study and work. All this together formed and still determines my style. Naturally, this is reflected in the creation of images and in the choice of means of expression.
Oil, watercolor, ink, pastel, and drypoint each carry centuries of history, and each resists the hand differently. When you reach for a particular medium, is it the subject that dictates the material, or is it your inner state of mind, or perhaps the subtle promise of the medium itself that seduces you into dialogue?
It varies. Sometimes the subject and my inner state dictate what material I will use. Sometimes even the weather has an effect. Sometimes it is the other way around – the material itself prompts the choice of subject. Watercolor fascinates me with its tenderness and transparency, and it suits me for sketches and drafts. Oil attracts me with its density and materiality. I use oil for massive figurative and abstract works. Drypoint requires from me a steady hand, and ink - clarity and precision... The listed materials, tested for centuries, are extremely attractive to me, and working with them is a real pleasure.
Safed is more than a place; it is a palimpsest of mysticism, memory, and myth. As an artist working within its charged atmosphere, do you find yourself consciously invoking this heritage in your art, or does the influence seep in quietly, shaping your sensibility in ways that only reveal themselves later?
Living in such a magical place, it is impossible for an artist to escape the influence of its magic. In this city, inspiration comes to me almost unconsciously. But they also say that it is not the place that makes the man, but the man that makes the place, and this is also true... Of course, I consciously turn to the heritage of the ancient city, where every street and every step is imbued with mysticism and wonderful stories. But sometimes I catch myself thinking that some detail in the picture appears unexpectedly and suddenly, like a message from the depths of centuries… Maybe the unconscious is turning on... or maybe this is how genetic memory manifests itself in a strange way... And who knows, maybe my distant ancestors once lived in Safed...
Your practice moves fluidly between representation and abstraction, between fidelity to the seen world and allegorical suggestion. Do you conceive of these as separate modes, or are they interwoven strands in a single continuum where reality and imagination are never fixed but constantly dissolving into one another?
As a child, when I had barely learned to read, the book’s world of dreams and fantasies attracted me more than the real and tangible. Now, in my work as an artist, the visibility is constantly intertwined with the imaginary. I am naturally very impressionable. In any other profession this would be a hindrance, but for an artist it is rather helpful. My work contains much that is intuitive, spontaneous, and many allusions to allegories. The real is nourished by the abstract and vice versa. One passes into the other, one dissolves in the other. Indeed, these are intertwined threads of a single continuum.
When you approach biblical narratives and figures from the Tanakh, you engage with stories that are already heavy with centuries of visual and theological interpretation. How do you carve out a space for your own vision within this lineage, and in what ways does your work reframe these narratives for a contemporary Israeli and global context?
Tanakh is a great Book, which artists and sculptors have turned to for many centuries. Everything has already been said on this subject, and there is nothing new in it... But it turns out that you can still tell something and show it in your own way. In general, this theme is inexhaustible. Recent archaeological excavations in Jerusalem prove that everything described in the Tanakh existed and happened. Of course, each period leaves a certain imprint on the perception of biblical heroes and stories. I think my own vision of Tanakhic stories and characters is fueled by the fact that I am a modern person and live in modern 21st century Israel. Thanks to my secular upbringing and education, I am completely free and independent in interpreting biblical stories. I perceive biblical characters as living people with their own characteristics, and understanding the personality archetype helps in creating an image.
You often emphasize both the spontaneity of intuition and the discipline of mental clarity. Within your process, how do these two forces, impulse and intellect, interact? Do they ever find themselves in conflict, or is it in their very tension that your most profound works are born?
My entire creative process is a combination of the work of the mind, intuition, hands and eyes. Usually, first I think over the idea and plot of the future work. Then I mentally create a composition and determine the color scheme. When everything is laid out in my head and the material is chosen, I proceed directly to painting the picture. But here's what happens. From the depths of the unconscious, some mechanism is activated, which guides my hand and tells me which line to draw and where, which color spot to place and were. In the process of work, a lot can change, even the initial idea. And it's so exciting that I forget about time and space.
Your work has traveled internationally, shown alongside artists immersed in conceptual, ephemeral, and technologically driven practices. In this global field, how do you see your devotion to painting, drawing, and etching as a counterpoint, as continuity, or as an insistence on a slower, more material language of seeing?
Painting, drawing and etching are the means for my natural language of self-expression, for expressing my inner self. I speak this language, conduct monologues and dialogues, and with its help I create visual images and allegories. At the same time, I pay tribute to digital art and other contemporary practices. Indeed, exhibitions now amaze with the diversity of various technical innovations. But my commitment to traditional techniques of painting, drawing and etching is not a challenge to modern technologies, not an attack against them. This is my intuitive desire to express my thoughts and emotions as I can and know how. And, probably, a latent desire for continuity and tradition.
You return often to the notion of art as a private refuge, a sanctuary of personal space. Yet in our hyper-mediated age, images circulate endlessly, detached from their origins. Do you believe a work can still preserve that intimate aura once it enters this vast digital flux, or does exposure itself transform intimacy into something else altogether?
Of course, under all circumstances, the work remains the private refuge of the artist who created it. But at the same time, it can become something else for the viewer. One does not contradict the other. There is another problem. In the mass media flow, any information, including images, is often not only torn away from its origins, but becomes nameless and even without personality. The product is alienated from its creator. And the worst thing is that with the help of various programs any image can be turned into something opposite to the original. I am not even talking about various kinds of falsifications. It is also very unpleasant if the author's name and his works end up on dubious sites. And often the artist's copyright is violated.
From the childhood impressions of Moscow’s museums to your present life in the ancient streets of Safed, your trajectory arcs across geographies, histories, and identities. Looking back, what moments most profoundly shifted your understanding of art’s possibilities, and looking forward, what questions remain most urgent and most unresolved for you as an artist?
There were moments in my life that influenced me and changed my understanding of the possibilities of art. These were childhood impressions of Moscow museums. This was the perception of light and color - already in Israel. We have a lot of sun and very bright light. The huge difference between artificial electric lighting and natural daylight, alive and vibrant, saturated with sun, is striking. Therefore, the color is perceived here in a completely different way. Everything looks brighter, more saturated and clearer, and you want to transfer this to canvas and paper. There was also an important moment when I came into contact with a new technique of etching, in the workshop of the wonderful master Ilya Bogdanovsky in Tel Aviv. Thanks to him, I fell in love with the ancient technique of drypoint forever. As for my unresolved issues, I resolve them as they come. I don't like to talk about my creative plans. They say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.