"I first came across Avital's work whilst enjoying a family supper in the home of the New York dealer, Iliya Fridman. He had just purchased Self Portrait Standing on Cardboard. For me, an instant envy and an instant wish to make a studio visit. As one critic wrote, Avital's work 'Flickers in the same fragile-fairylike-figurative-realistic territory in which something romantic is present and which embodies modesty as a temperament, a fragile stillness that must be protected from the terrible din of the current, the transient'. 

"Avital's studio, her own little kingdom of cardboard castles, gilded frames, peeling brickwork, flowers in crevices, cardboard boxes and tubes, relishing the everyday beauty of the every day. Once upon a time, kings lived in castles, knights fought for romantic glory, to gain their maiden's hand and few could be fairer than The Portrait of Adi as Maria Portiniari.  They say 'My home is my castle' but for far too many rootless, nomadic travellers that castle is made from discarded cardboard.

"On my first visit, I acquired a tiny working oil sketch of a Blue Lamp standing on a pile of cardboard boxes.  I left elated and humbled and knew that I would buy more. From her gallery in Tel Aviv, I added to my addiction by purchasing House on the Floor and most recently a beautiful impasto The Alfama Self Portrait. 

"Avital's draughtsmanship, her disciplined palette draws on her love of the richness and textures of her Renaissance mentors but honed right back to the sensitive colour tones that her time at The Slade School informs. Her work echoes the teachings of Patrick George, Euan Uglow, Andy Pankhurst.

"Avi Pitchon writes: 'Her use of a relief-like painting technique: the oil paint itself mixes the dried remnants left on the palette with fresh paint, packed and piled onto the canvas until it protrudes from the surface and takes on a relief-like sculptural quality. This features to various degrees in the paintings of flowers, cardboard boxes and self portraits'.

"Fragments of grandeur, peel back the layers, we can't live in yesterday but Avital shows us how yesterday's skins can live in tomorrow."

- Nick Crean, December 2020

Avital Burg was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received her artistic training all over the world: at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem; Hatahana School of Drawing and Painting, Tel Aviv; The Slade School of Art, London; and the New York Studio School.

Burg’s paintings are based on the direct observation of the world she constructs in her studio, incorporating her physical and personal surroundings. She engages in visual journaling, painting wildflowers from her neighbourhood and red brick walls reminiscent of her early years in Jerusalem. Portraits, self-portraits and architecture frequently appear too, as a way of linking the current moment with historical pasts such as Roman Egyptian mummy portraits and the Early Renaissance and Baroque periods. Her method of isolating mundane objects and painting them after many hours of observation is often a way of contemplating slowness; to reflect on how the present moment encapsulates different times, her paintings use dried paint mixed with fresh paint, with some canvases completed over three or four previous works.

Recent solo shows of Burg's work have taken place at Slag Gallery, New York and at the Neve Schechter Gallery, Tel Aviv, as well as other galleries. Two-person exhibitions have included Arts at AJU, Los Angeles, and Club Caltural Matienzo, Buenos Aires, and she has exhibited in several group shows in New York and Tel Aviv. She is the recipient of several grants and was the artist in residence of the Peleh Residency in California in 2019.

Burg's works also form part of many collections worldwide, among them the Louis-Dreyfus Family Collection, NY; The Bank Leumi art collection, Israel; and Mr. Dov Shiff's collection, Israel.