Yuval Golan

Emek's father, Yuval, was raised collectively on a kibbutz in Israel, by idealistic farmer-intellectuals, much as Emek would be raised a generation later. The son of a self-educated horticulturalist who spoke five languages, and a kitchen manager/ceramicist who played mandolin, Yuval showed promise as a painter and print-maker from an early age. He supported himself as an artist on the kibbutz while also milking cows. Following the 1967 war, he became a political artist, using art to speak out against war and Occupation as illustrator for Israel's New Left Party magazine, 1968-1972. When Emek was 4 years old, Yuval and Lynda moved penniless to the United States. Yuval continued to paint on themes of war, greed, and injustice, while supporting himself as a manual laborer. Inspired by the sleek modernity of US society, he became interested in technology and it's relationship to human beings, the main subject of his later artwork, and the main inspiration for Emek. In the mid 1980's, Yuval started making kinetic sculpture, operated by motors that included light, sound, and motion, inspired by the work of kinetic artists like Dave Quick. Yuval is still a printmaker and kinetic sculptor, and also writes plays and poetry about his life, family, and political outlook. Along the way, he developed his own special print-makiing technique, combining elements of silkscreen, etching, embossing and other lost art forms to create extremely limited edition hand made prints. He just moved to Portland this month.

Exhibits