Shulamit Kopf



Curiosity is the main driving force for the art for Tel Aviv artist Shulamit Kopf. Drawing on the chaos and order found in natural processes, Kopf's spontaneous compositions and subconscious creation are marked by strong, erratic lines of Japanese Sumi ink that suggest geological fractures or aerial landscapes.


Her latest breakthrough is a unique technique that renders regular canvas translucent to light. This method allows her paintings to interact with their surroundings in a harmonious dance of light and shadow. Kopf paints on un-stretched canvases, mostly on the studio floor, with the paintings developing intuitively and spontaneously.


 


Suddenly

In her new series, "Suddenly She Appears," Kopf was surprised by female forms that emerged from the chaos, their figures bearing signs of a struggle to emerge from the abyss. The canvas is rich with textures that can only be seen when one approaches close.


The composition is dynamic, with organic forms that flow and intertwine. The distribution of forms and colors creates a balance without symmetry, and movement directs the viewer's gaze across the canvas.

The textural diversity adds a tactile dimension.


With a background in journalism, Kopf's approach to art is driven by an insatiable curiosity and quest for discovery and expression, leading her to innovate new techniques.


Her latest breakthrough is a unique method that renders regular canvas translucent to light. This allows her paintings to interact with their surroundings in a harmonious dance of light and shadow.

Each piece is an invitation to contemplate the juxtaposition of permanence and change, the structured and the random. Each mark records the artist's movement, a moment captured in pigment and texture. It's a visual chronicle of the artist's interaction with their medium and, through it, with the world.


The series was exhibited in the Tel Aviv Artist House on March 2024.

Wormholes

Kopf began her “Wormhole” series in 2020 with unstretched canvasses, two meters long by one meter wide, on which she rendered thin black lines that curve, meander, turn a corner, meet, veer away, and at times intersect. Knowing how way leads on to way (in the words of poet Robert Frost) and since lines can fold back in time and space, she began folding the canvases, creating new intersections for the lines to meet, wormholes of the sort. At first, the folds were pressed flat but over time the folded canvasses began amassing volume turning into wall sculptures breaking the bourgeois concept of traditional canvass stretched on wooden frames.


The series was exhibited in the Tel Aviv Artist House in 2021 and in the Jerusalem International Convention Center in 2024.


Training & Education

Kopf has studied with painter Ronit Binder and at the Hatachana Studio in Tel Aviv with Aram Gershuni, Ilya Geftner, and Ran Tenenbaum. She has studied landscape painting with American artist Lois Griffel, former director of the Cape Cod School of Art.


In addition to a BA degree in philosophy and an MA in English literature, Kopf completed a BA in Art History at Tel Aviv University. 


Kopf is a member of the Israeli Professional Visual Artist Association.