TEL AVIV.- Eti Jacobi is the laureate of the Rappaport Prize for an established artist for 2022. Avi Sabah is the laureate of the Rappaport Prize for a young promising artist for 2022.
The value of the prizes to the winning artists is USD 140,000:
The established artist prize includes USD 35,000 awarded to the artist herself and funding a solo exhibition at
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, complete with a catalogue.
The young promising artist prize includes USD 15,000 awarded to the artist himself and funding a solo exhibition at Tel Aviv Museum of Art, complete with a catalogue.
Funding of exhibitions to the laureates this year will total at USD 90,000.
Each winning artist will contribute a piece to the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Collection of Israeli Art – the entire collection will be donated to Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Eti Jacobi, born 1961, Jaffa
Eti studied art at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design as well as classics and philosophy at Tel Aviv University. She has exhibited her works in solo and group exhibitions since 1981. In 1991 she presented her solo exhibition "Wonderful World 3" at Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Jacobi lives and works in Tel Aviv, teaches at Bezalel Academy for Art and Design and at Hamidrasha Faculty of Arts. She won various prizes and her works are included in private collections and in the collections of Tel Aviv Museum of Art and in the Israel Museum. In an era of flowing digital images that cloud visual experience, Eti Jacobi has held on to painting as a space for work and stay. Over the last forty years, her works are organized in series that range from figuration to abstraction deeply associated with the history of classical Western painting. Her early works demonstrated new, virtuous displays of combination between familiar figures from Walt Disney's animation world and Doré's paintings of the Bible stories. This space of a quest for a personal, feminine voice regarding worded paintings has, with time, become a mature, inspiring channel of dedication to the intrinsic truth of painting. The series of recent years include the prominent series "Black Paintings" in which images that have become the artist's personal language, such as monkeys, oranges, and skulls, emerge from the darkness. At the same time Jacobi develops a series of large, clear paintings that capture almost miraculously the image of blinding, radiant and flickering light – supposedly abstract painting but actually a realistic, true depiction of light and air. This effect of observing is a result of physical action and skilled painting proficiency.
In her consistent work, Jacobi has a meaningful presence as a teacher who grants reaffirmation and validity to contemporary painting.
Avi Sabah, born 1977, Ma'alot-Tarshiha
Avi graduated with a Bachelor's Degree with distinction from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and since 2006 has served as a lecturer at this academy. One of the founders of the Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem. He was part of the "Same World Trio" sound group with artists Gabi Kricheli and Pesach Slabosky of blessed memory. He has presented paintings and sculptures in solo and group exhibitions since 2025. In 2020 he presented his "Face Down" solo exhibition in Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. Avi has won various prizes, including the Osnat Mozes Painting Prize and the Ministry of Culture Award. His works are included in private collections and in the collection of Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The alchemist work of Avi Sabah is a continuous quest for the Philosopher's Stone, a pure formula of substance, form, and essence. He works on paper and its derivatives corresponding with traditions but also deviating from accepted modes of action. His work is influenced and driven by memory and reactions between materials, and by the reconciliation of physical materials with mental materials. His works sometimes take a third dimension which spreads out and occupies space. Sabah's painting materials are varied and he is intensely occupied with them – tar, burnt papers, copper, pieces of torn jeans, facial lipids and more. In recent years his work took a turn and from colourful, expressive works he started to draw on paper, in small formats and traditional techniques, such as coal drawings or aquarelles. Sabah is not trubled with impositions of time and place or with the norms of "contemporary art". His work is instead entirely driven by internal visions, a world of symbols and mythologies, images of beginning and end, images of the creation of Adam, chaos, cosmic flood or silence across the water. Materialism, which is intrinsic to his works, has changed form in his more mature series – the water in his current aquarelles is water he collected from dewdrops on stalks and leaves in the morning or condensed cloud droplets. Intensity and integrity have been present in his works from the outset creating the enigmetic, prolific magic in his ouevre.
Judges' considerations for the Rappaport Art Prize, 2022
Laureate of the Rappaport Prize for an established artist - Eti Jacobi
In an era of flowing digital images that cloud visual experience, Eti Jacobi has held on to painting as a space for work and stay. Over the last forty years, her works are organized in series that range from figuration to abstraction deeply associated with the history of classical Western painting. Her early works demonstrated new, virtuous displays of combination between familiar figures from Walt Disney's animation world and Doré's paintings of the Bible stories. This space of a quest for a personal, feminine voice regarding worded paintings has, with time, become a mature, inspiring channel of dedication to the intrinsic truth of painting. The series of recent years include the prominent series "Black Paintings" in which images that have become the artist's personal language, such as monkeys, oranges, and skulls, emerge from the darkness. At the same time Jacobi develops a series of large, clear paintings that capture almost miraculously the image of blinding, radiant and flickering light – supposedly abstract painting but actually a realistic, true depiction of light and air. This effect of observing is a result of physical action and skilled painting proficiency.
In her consistent work, Jacobi has a meaningful presence as a teacher who grants reaffirmation and validity to contemporary painting.
Laureate of the Rappaport Prize for a young promising artist – Avi Sabah
The alchemist work of Avi Sabah is a continuous quest for the Philosopher's Stone, a pure formula of substance, form, and essence. He works on paper and its derivatives corresponding with traditions but also deviating from accepted modes of action. His work is influenced and driven by memory and reactions between materials, and by the reconciliation of physical materials with mental materials. His works sometimes take a third dimension which spreads out and occupies space. Sabah's painting materials are varied and he is intensely occupied with them – tar, burnt papers, copper, pieces of torn jeans, facial lipids and more. In recent years his work took a turn and from colourful, expressive works he started to draw on paper, in small formats and traditional techniques, such as coal drawings or aquarelles. Sabah is not trubled with impositions of time and place or with the norms of "contemporary art". His work is instead entirely driven by internal visions, a world of symbols and mythologies, images of beginning and end, images of the creation of Adam, chaos, cosmic flood or silence across the water. Materialism, which is intrinsic to his works, has changed form in his more mature series – the water in his current aquarelles is water he collected from dewdrops on stalks and leaves in the morning or condensed cloud droplets. Intensity and integrity have been present in his works from the outset creating the enigmetic, prolific magic in his ouevre.
