ADI NES - SOLDIERS -
Adi Nes is one of the most celebrated art photographers in Israel. Over the course, his distinguished 20-year career, Nes has created a groundbreaking body of work that has inspired a generation of artists while presenting the multilayered complexities of Israeli identity.
Since completing his studies in the Photography Department of the Bezalel Academy of Art and
Design, Jerusalem, in 1992, Nes’ work appeared in countless group and solo exhibitions in his native Israel and worldwide.
Nes’ images continue to reverberate across the art world and in wider cultural circles as his admirers continue to grow on a global scale. Thus, it can be said that Adi Nes’ creations reveal iconic images which have been carved in the collective consciousness and have become part of the public canon.
STYLE
Adi Nes’ photographic style is staged, a genre that has blossomed in photography over the past 30 years.
This genre has changed the stature of photography in the art world, positioning it as a leading medium in the contemporary art industry.
Nes’ creations have contributed significantly to this revolution in Israel while developing a direct, personal, and unique language in the use of this medium. In his work, Nes creates a constructed reality, artificial and staged, but it’s a fiction that indicates a greater truth.
His oversized color prints, photographed while scrupulously attending to issues of quality and lighting, frequently look as if created simply and effortlessly.
Yet behind each figure is a complete package of visual and textual references, along with complex direction, which includes long months of research, choosing locations, casting, set-building, designing, lighting, preparatory shooting to develop and build the proper composition applying makeup and staging.
THEMES
The central themes in Adi Nes’ photographs deal with the issues of Israeli identity and masculinity. His work wrestles with social and political questions surrounding gender, the center vs. the periphery, Eastern vs. Western cultures, ethnic issues, Judaism, local myths, militarism, humanism, and social justice.
Nes’ multi-layered photographs draw inspiration from his personal biography and from the collective Israeli memory and universal art history. As a result, his photographs frequently resonate with creations of past artistic giants as well as modern contemporary works.
Nes relates to different mythological canons, including Greek, Christian, and local mythologies, along with images from Art History, film, print media and journalism, fashion, and even from snapshots and random family albums.
He provocatively transforms images from one context to another and, in the process, successfully creates a new, critical statement about the realities of our lives.
Like many Renaissance and Baroque artists from whom Nes draws inspiration, he deals with spiritual revelation as manifested in humble and familiar redemptive moments. The heroes of his series – youth from the periphery, soldiers, prisoners, and street people – earn a blessed instance of honor and empathy during dramatic flashes, insights, or purifying experiences that transform them into representatives of the human condition.
SERIALIZATIONS
Adi Nes presents his photographs in what he calls a series. To date, his work includes the following five series: Soldiers, Boys, Prisoners, and Biblical Stories.
CREATIVE TECHNIQUE
Adi Nes not only possesses a great deal of talent for photographing images full of content, but he also excels at creating visually vibrant compositions. His oversized color prints are graphically stunning.
His choice of location, casting and characters, costumes, composition and virtuoso and meticulous use of lighting – during exposure and printing – enable Nes to create an impressive body of work that is of the highest quality.
Nes is best at creating compositions built as cautious, geometric situations which generate tension and lead to a dramatic and clear climax. His multi-layered aesthetic compositions, originality in form and rich in content, takes viewers on a long and fascinating journey that allows them to discover different facets at every glance.