About
Yael Ben Shalom is a visual artist based in Tel Aviv, working with pastel, graphite and charcoal on paper, alongside hand-perforated light boxes.
She holds an MFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and a B.Ed. in Fine Art and Education from HaMidrasha. Her solo exhibitions include Here, Other Laws Apply (2026), I Cover the Nothingness with Birds (2024), and Falling Up (2020).
Artist statement
My work begins with material. I apply pastel with sponges, building thin layers of colour until the paper begins to show through. The image emerges gradually, out of what the material has already done.
The body is present even when no figure is drawn. In earlier works it appeared directly: an embrace, a pair of lungs. In recent paintings, its presence has shifted into the act of making. What remains on the paper is a landscape that remembers a body: things falling, dripping, hanging, surfaces that absorb or reflect them.
Working with my hands, slowly and repeatedly, I explore the boundaries between inside and outside, between the self and what surrounds it. Through this process, I seek a form of consciousness that extends beyond the individual body or mind. The drawings are traces of that search.
Alongside the drawings, I make light boxes. A drawing is photographed, printed, and then perforated by hand, allowing light to pass through the perforations and emerge from within the image. The drawing becomes a thing that breathes.
Untitled, 2026, pastel on paper, 25 × 40 cm