Shahar Tuchner’s multidisciplinary practice moves across painting, video, sculpture and mixed media, exploring the shifting relationship between material, image and perception. Working through layering, intervention and reworking, Tuchner allows form to evolve gradually, creating works that sit between control and transformation, structure and intuition.
Rather than beginning with a fixed outcome, Tuchner’s process unfolds through movement, sensation and direct engagement with material. Images and objects are added to, removed, dismantled and reconstructed, allowing meaning to emerge through the act of making itself. This openness extends into the viewer’s encounter with the work, where narrative is not presented as a closed story but as a field of association, memory and personal interpretation.
Influenced by artists including Claude Monet, Joan Mitchell and Mark Rothko, Tuchner is drawn to the physical and emotional experience of colour, atmosphere, scale and movement. Everyday materials, cultural symbols and diverse visual sources are brought into new contexts, where familiar forms shift in meaning and reflect wider questions around identity, consumer culture and the dialogue between Eastern and Western influences. Across painting, video and sculptural practice, Tuchner’s work becomes a living presence, shaped by transformation, attention and the continual reimagining of form.
Are you self-taught, or did you undertake formal artistic training?
I have worked within both formal and informal frameworks of learning. While I was exposed to structured systems, over time I came to realize that my artistic language does not develop from fixed rules or methods, but through a personal process of exploration, experimentation, and reflection.
Gradually, I understood that I could not rely solely on what I had learned, but needed to develop a way of working rooted in intuition, direct experience, and an ongoing engagement with the act of making itself.
How would you define your visual language or conceptual approach?
My visual language evolves from a tension between control and the transformation of form. I work intuitively, allowing images to emerge through layers, shifts, and an ongoing internal dialogue.
At times, there is a desire to articulate a clear statement, yet more often I am interested in creating an open experiential field that activates the viewer. The work is intended to engage, provoke, and generate an internal response, rather than simply communicate a fixed idea.
Can you describe your creative process from conception to completion?
The process usually begins without a predetermined structure. I enter the work through movement, material, and sensation, from which it develops through continuous transformation – adding, removing, reworking, and at times dismantling and reconstructing.
Memory, associations, and ideas emerging from words or visual forms become part of the process. Imagination leads the work into directions that are not always anticipated.
The final form is not decided in advance, but gradually takes shape from within the work itself, through persistence and sensitivity to the material.
Does narrative, symbolism, or storytelling play a role within your work?
Narrative is not presented in a linear or explicit way, yet it exists as an underlying layer. Rather than telling a defined story, I aim to create a condition in which the viewer begins to construct their own narrative through the encounter with the work.
The imagery functions as a trigger, activating associations, memories, and ideas, through which a personal experience unfolds. In some works narrative is more present, yet it remains open. What interests me is not the story itself, but what it sets in motion.
Which artists have most influenced you historically or contemporarily and why?
I have been influenced by artists who operate on the boundary between control and intensity of experience. Encounters with the works of Claude Monet, Joan Mitchell, and Mark Rothko were particularly significant, each in a different way. In Monet and Mitchell I found a dissolution of structure into atmosphere, movement, and sensation, while in Rothko I encountered a presence in which colour and scale create a distinctly physical experience. What connects them for me is the ability to create work that is not only seen, but fully experienced.
What personal, cultural, or environmental influences shape your practice?
My work is shaped by significant life experiences and the ways in which they are processed and transformed over time. It carries layers that emerge from change, pressure, and complex conditions, alongside a continuous need to construct and reconstruct – both visually and internally.
The tension between stability and shifting states is present, though not explicitly stated. It manifests through material, process, and the way forms evolve, break apart, and reassemble. Cultural and environmental influences do not appear as direct references, but as part of the underlying texture and rhythm of the work.
Where is your studio based, and how does the space inform your creativity?
My studio exists within my living environment, creating an ongoing connection between daily life and artistic practice. Materials, ideas, and everyday situations naturally find their way into the work.
The space carries memory and intimacy, which become embedded in the process itself. Working within a lived environment allows the work to evolve organically and remain in continuous development.
Do you have any rituals or rhythms that anchor your studio practice?
My practice is not based on a fixed routine, but on an ongoing process in which the work remains in constant development. I move between making and pausing to observe, reflect, and understand what is taking place within the work.
This movement allows me to evaluate each stage – its precision, its presence, and whether it generates the intended tension or meaning.
What sustains the process is not repetition, but a continual return to focus, attention, and presence.
What bodies of work or projects are you currently developing?
I am currently developing bodies of work that explore the relationship between material transformation and processes that unfold within the work itself. These include painting, video, and sculptural practices that move between control and ongoing transformation of form.
I examine how material, image, and movement evolve over time, and how meaning emerges through layering, action, and continuous intervention. The work continues to develop until it consolidates into a coherent presence.
Where can collectors encounter or acquire your work?
My work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions, as well as screenings and international festivals. It can be encountered through my website and selected platforms where my work and selected projects are presented.
Selected works are available to collectors, and in some cases, direct connections are formed around acquisition or collaboration through an engagement with the work itself.
