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Article about Raphael Perez naive art paintings

Raphael Perez is an Israeli artist known for his naive style paintings of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem cities. His work captures the essence of these cities and their urban landscapes, highlighting their iconic buildings and sites. Perez’s paintings create an idealized atmosphere in which reality is beautified and presented in a dreamy, fantastic manner.

Perez’s work is characterized by its vibrant colors and cheerful depiction of life in these cities. The streets in his paintings are full of people and loving couples hugging and kissing, while the boulevards are lined with well-kept trees and bushes. Perez’s work presents a vision of Israel’s future as a promising startup nation, with beautiful, clean, and naive cityscapes featuring towering skyscrapers reaching towards the sky.

Through his art, Perez portrays Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem as modern and advanced cities. His paintings are a celebration of these cities’ unique characters and their places as cultural hubs in Israel. Perez’s work is a testament to the beauty and vitality of these cities and their people.

In conclusion, Raphael Perez is an Israeli artist whose naive style paintings of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem cities capture the essence of these cities and their urban landscapes. His work presents an idealized vision of these cities that is both beautiful and vibrant. Perez’s paintings are a celebration of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem and their unique characters as modern and advanced cities.


Article about Raphael Perez homosexual gay art paintings

Pride and Prejudice on Raphael Perezs Artwork

Raphael Perez, born in 1965, studied art at the College of Visual Arts in Beer Sheva, and from 1995 has been living and working in his studio in Tel Aviv. Today Perez plays an important role in actively promoting the LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual art and culture in Tel Aviv, and the internet portal he set up helps artists from the community reach large audiences in Israel and abroad. Hundreds of his artworks are part of private collections in Israel and abroad, and his artworks were shown in several group exhibitions in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Zman LeOmanut art gallery, Camera Obscura, The Open House in Jerusalem, Ophir Gallery, The Haifa Forum and other private businesses and galleries.
In 2003-4 his paintings and studio appeared in a full-length movie, three student films and two graduation films.

Raphael Perez is the first Israeli artist to express his lifestyle as a Gay. His life and the life of the LGBT community are connected and unfold over hundreds of artwork pieces. His art creation is rare and extraordinary by every Israeli and international artistic standard. His sources of inspiration are first and foremost life events intertwined in Jewish and Israeli locality as well as influences and quotes from art history David Hockney, Matisse. This uniqueness has crossed international borders and has succeeded in moving the LGBT and art communities around the world.

This is the first time we meet an Israeli artist who expresses all of his emotions in a previously unknown strength. The subjects of the paintings are the everyday life of couples in everyday places and situations, along with the aspiration to a homosexual relationship and family, equality and public recognition. Perezs works bring forward to the cultural space and to the public discourse the truth about living as LGBT and about relationships, with all of their aspects � casual relationships and sex, the yearning for love, the everyday life and the mundane activities that exist in every romantic relationship � whether by describing two men in an intimate scene in the bathroom, the bedroom or the toilet, a male couple raising a baby or the homosexual version of the Garden of Eden, family dinners, relationship ups and downs, the complexity in sharing a life as well as mundane, everyday life competing with the aspiration to self realization � through Perezs life.


Perezs first artworks are personal diaries, which he creates at 14 years of age. He makes sure to hide these diaries, as in them he keeps a personal journal describing his life events in the most genuine way. In these journals he draws thousands of drawings and sketches, next to which he alternately writes and erases his so-called problematic texts, texts describing his struggle with his sexual orientation. His diaries are filled with obsessive cataloging of details, daily actions, friends and work, as well as repeating themes, such as thoughts, exhibits he has seen, movies, television, books and review of his work.

When he is done writing, Perez draws on his diaries. Each layer is done from beginning to end all along the journal. In fact, the work on the diaries never ends.
This struggle never ends, and when the emotion is passed on to paper, and it ends its role and becomes meaningless in a way, the visual-graphic side becomes dominant, due to the need to hide the written text, according to Perez. In books and diaries this stands out even more � when he chooses to draw in a style influenced by childrens drawings, the characters are cheerful, happy, na�ve and do not portray any sexuality, and when he tries drawing as an adult the sketches became more depressed and somber. During these years Perez works with preschool children, teaching them drawing and movement games. Perez says that during this period he completely abandoned the search for a relationship, either with a woman or a man, and working with children has given him existential meaning. This creation continues over 10 years, and Perez creates about 60 books-personal journals in various sizes notepads, old notebooks, atlases and even old art books.

In his early paintings 1998-1999 the transition from relationships with women to relationships with men can be seen, from restraint to emotional outburst in color, lines and composition. Some characters display strong emotional expression. The women are usually drawn in restraint and passiveness, while a happy and loving emotional outburst is expressed in the colors and style of the male paintings.

I fantasized that in a relationship with a woman I could fly in the sky, love, fly. However, I felt I was hiding something I was choked up, hidden behind a mask, as if there was an internal scream wanting to come out. I was frustrated, I felt threatened�

His first romance with a man in 1999 has drawn out a series of na�ve paintings dealing with love and the excitement of performing everyday actions together in the intimate domestic environment.

The excitement from each everyday experience of doing things together and the togetherness was great, so I painted every possible thing I liked doing with him.

From the moment the self-oppression and repression stopped, Perez started the process of healing, which was expressed in a burst of artworks, enormous in their size, amount, content and vivid colors � red, pink and white.

In 2000 Perez starts painting the huge artworks describing the hangouts of the LGBT community The Lake, The Pool and the Tel Avivian balcony paintings describing the masculine world, which, according to him, becomes existent thanks to the painting. Perez has dedicated this year to many series of drawings and paintings of the experience of love, in which he describes his first love for his new partner, and during these months he paints from morning to night. These paintings are the fruit of a long dialogue with David Hockney, and the similarity can be seen both in subjects and in different gestures.

In 2001 Perez creates a series of artworks, Portraits from The Community. Perez describes in large, photorealistic paintings over 20 portraits of active and well-known members of the LGBT community. The emphasis is on the achievements that reflect the communitys strong standing in Tel Aviv.
As a Tel-Avivian painter, in the past two years Perez has been painting urban landscapes of central locations in his city. Perez wanders around the city and chooses familiar architectural and geographical landmarks, commerce and recreation, and historical sites, and paints them from a homosexual point of view, decorated with the rainbow flag, which provide a sense of belonging to the place. His artworks are characterized by a cheerful joie de vivre and colors, and they also describe encounters and meetings. The touristic nature of his paintings makes them a declaration of Tel Avivs image as a place where cultural freedom prevails.
Perezs Tel Aviv is a city where young families and couples live and fill the streets, the parks, the beach, the houses and the balconies � all the citys spaces. The characters in his paintings are similar, which helps reinforcing the belonging to the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. The collective theme in Perezs artwork interacts with the work of the Israeli artist Yohanan Simon, who dealt with the social aspects of the Kibbutz. Simon, who lived and worked in a Kibbutz, expressed the human model of the Kibbutznik member of a Kibbutz and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz members as part of a group where all are equal. Simons works, and now Perezs, have contributed to the Israeli society what is has been looking for endlessly, which is a sense of identity and belonging.
Perez maps his territory and marks his boundaries, and does not forget the historical sites. Unlike other Tel Avivian artists, Perez wishes to present the lives of the residents of the city and the great love in their hearts. By choosing the historical sites in Tel Aviv, he also pays tribute to the artist Nachum Gutman, who loved the city and lived in it his whole life. In his childhood Gutman experienced historical moments lighting the first oil lamp, first concert, first pavement, and as an adult he recreated the uniqueness of those events while keeping the citys magic.
Like Gutman, Perez has also turned the city into an object of love, and it has started adorning itself in rich colors and supplying the energy of a city that wishes to be the city that never sleeps, combining old and new. Perez meticulously describes the uniqueness and style of the Bauhaus houses and balconies along the modern glass and steel buildings, all from unusual angles in a rectangular format that wishes to imitate the panorama of a diverse city in its centennial celebrations.

Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, curator.
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A project of 17 portraits of activists from the gay community in Israel, the works were painted in 2005-2003
The drawings are in a hyper-realistic style of activists and activities from the gay community in Israel, of course there are other iconic figures that I did not draw so I apologize in advance to them, the activists are from the political, cultural and nightlife fields who contributed to the gay community during the 80s and 90s of the twentieth century.

Professor Uzi Even - Professor of Chemistry. The first homosexual MK in Israel, contributed to the promotion of LGBT rights in the workplace, adoption of children, gay marriage.

Theo Mintz - one of the founders of the Gay Lesbian and Transgender Association in Israel.

Ran Kotzer - film director. TV show producer, documentary maker of the films Cause of Death Homophobia, Gay Games and a documentary on Amos Gutman.

Tal Eitan - fashion and advertising photographer, exhibition curator and nightlife man.

Avi Sofer - jeweler and glass maker, former chairman of the LGBT Association.

Chai Ben Shoshan lives - a man of the night life and was chosen for the Israel Man of the Year competition.

Itai Pankas - former chairman of the LGBT Association, one of the founders of the gay center, branches of the association in the periphery, and a former activist in municipal politics who greatly promoted the rights of the community in Tel Aviv.

Irit Rabinowitz - Israeli painter, born in Beer Sheva.

Michal Eden - lawyer and the first gay politician in Israel. Active in KLF - a feminist lesbian community, promoting the issue of surrogacy, proud parenthood, LGBT rights, the establishment of Beit Dror - a daycare center for boys and girls from the community who were thrown out of their families.

Yuval Hatz - event producer and triathlon athlete and promotes sports in the gay community.

Alon Strykovski - former chairman of the LGBT Association.

Zvi Mermelstein - a homosexual poet, the author of the masterful book Suiting Upper and Lower Openings.

Shaz - Israeli poet and writer.

Eli Sharon - IDF officer with the rank of the first proud colonel. In the past he was involved in promoting gay tourism and having a couple therapist.

Rami Hasman - Advertiser and one of the leaders of the fight for carrier rights and the promotion of information about AIDS in Israel.

Aitzik Yoshua - journalist and former chairman of the LGBT Association.

Gadi Sasson - Journalist, writer and editor of the Pink Time magazine.

The process of working on the series of portrait paintings was through a meeting at the activists homes, I photographed them and then I worked with the technique of photorealism on these paintings like the famous painter Chuck Close I started with a very careful drawing on a white canvas - I did the drawing with a projector Slides when the photograph is projected onto the white canvas and then a kind of map is created that gives the contours and tonalities of the color from light to dark, after I finished the drawing then I chose the color palette that I want to use to create the portraits, as a painter I almost touch all types of techniques From painting in the style of photorealism, many paintings and drawings were made from observing objects, still life, flowers, figures or from freely observing any kind of photography... and of course many paintings were made freely from the imagination, so technically I allow myself to use a huge selection of most painting techniques , also with the many years of experience I have experimented with all mediums from pencil drawings, markers, markers, ink, oil paints, acrylic paints, watercolors, gouache paints, works on paper and canvas fabrics, works on wooden plywood, works on books,

I was surprised to see that most of the activists, regardless of their activities for the gay community, are dominant figures in the life of Israeli society, most of them officers in the IDF as opposed to the image that gays have as if they are not suitable for the army with professions that contribute greatly to the development of Israeli society on an economic, cultural and social level.
Most of them are in a high economic situation and from the elite of Israeli society,
I painted them in their natural environment, in the beautiful and well-kept houses and some of them are just a portrait without a background.
My goal was actually to show the bourgeois side of the community, through the painting of the conservative realist style, through the portrait against the background of the interior of the well-kept house in which they live, and choosing activists of all ages as opposed to the many representations given to gays who are shown infrequently or marginally, or excessive preoccupation with the culture of body worship , the beauty and youth as is often shown in the gay community. I also have quite a few such works...
In the series of portraits, I wanted to emphasize the occupation and contribution to the community.
This project was featured on the pages of the Pink Time magazine for months, with the resume description of each and every activist.
In 2009 on the day of the Pride Parade, a mass event with hundreds of thousands of people Avi Sofer curated the exhibition dedicated to this project of the activists paintings in the gay center.
A large and significant part of these works were purchased by the collector Amos Shokan who purchased hundreds of my works.
These paintings continue to receive great exposure on the Internet following the many publications given over the years to this special project.

For me it was a way to give back to the gay community for the many years that gay community settings such as businesses, cafes, magazines, gay centers presented my works, supported me as an artist and members of the community also purchased works of art from me and allowed me to continue creating and working, a complex task in itself for any artist to survive from his art.

Over the years my work as an artist has changed and I would characterize it in two main painting styles, one painting style is the realistic painting with which I created the series of paintings of heterosexual couples, gays, lesbians, pregnant women, the series of portraits from the gay community in the style of photorealism, a realistic painting of the partner Assaf Hennigsberg in a realistic style - colorful and the series of paintings of the realistic expressive flower couples, and on the other hand there is the other style which is the naive painting with which I mainly painted the urban landscape of cities in Israel and in the world, a kind of idealization of reality and the street paintings full of vegetation, colorful buildings and the use of bright and contrasting colors and a series of naive paintings Under the influence of childrens drawings with which I created the series of 40 artist books and other drawings that are influenced by childrens drawings...
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Raphael Perez Rafi Peretz, is an Israeli painter who explores his personal and sexual identity through his flower paintings. He created a series of flower paintings from 1995 to 1998,
When he was in his early thirties, Rafi Peretz was still in relationships with women, even though he felt gay, he created the series of flower paintings that reflect the turmoil of the mind and the struggle with his sexual orientation.
Raphael Perez drew two flowers, one blooming and one wilting, to represent the contrast and conflict between his heterosexual relationships and his true self.
He also painted single flowers or two flowers at their best, to express his longing for a harmonious relationship that matched his nature.
Raphael Perez chose sunflowers, white lilies and red lilies as symbols of expression, purity and joy, respectively.
He painted real flowers from observation, using different styles from Realism, Expressionism, Fauvism and contrasting light and shadow to create drama and mood.
The couple paintings of the Flower Burst are minimalistic and focus on the subject of complex relationships. Omit any background or context, leaving only the fabric and the drawing of the pairs of flowers. In some of the paintings he added a very airy abstract surface with thin oil paints that give an atmosphere of watercolors. He created drawings of flowers in ink, markers and gouache on paper. Later he created large acrylic paintings of flowers and still life. Peretzs flower paintings are not just illustrations or decorations. They are autobiographical and psychological expressions of his inner state and his struggle with his sexuality.
He wanted to reveal his loneliness, distress and concealment through these paintings, and connect with people who are in a similar situation. Deliberately choose only two flowers and no more to intensify the engagement in the charged and complex relationship.
There are realistic paintings of couples of men and women with charged psychological states, and also states of desire for connection and fulfillment of a heterosexual relationship that did not succeed.

He used hyperrealism and expressive styles to convey his frozen and restrained state within a heterosexual relationship, to express the distress and mental pressure. He used harsh lighting to create contrast and drama, with one side very bright and the other darker.
Peretz was influenced by some of the famous artists who painted flowers, such as Van Gogh, who also used sunflowers as a symbol of emotional expression. He also used white and red nightshades to convey freshness, cleanliness, purity, color, joy, movement, exuberance and splendor.
Raphael Perez painted some single flowers or two flowers at their best, to show his aspiration for a future where he would have a harmonious relationship.
Today, 2023, he is 58 years old and has been in a happy relationship for 10 years with his partner Assaf Henigsberg. He is surrounded by friends and soulmates and is not conflicted with heterosexual relationships as he once was.
Occasionally he draws flowers in pots to symbolize home, stability and peace and solid ground.
He doesnt just paint a few flowers, but pots full of flowers overflowing with life. This means that we also have a supportive network of family, friends and colleagues around us. We live in a rich, supportive and protective world.
The entire series of flowers and all of Raphael Perezs paintings come from his desire to tell the psychological autobiographical story and to personify the flowers and other objects and characters he chooses. A good work always tells a private story that touches everything, there is no person in the world who does not deal in his private life with a relationship, love, relationships in all the shades that exist in them from joy, loneliness, love, passion, fulfillment and lack of fulfillment of a relationship and in fact this search exists in everyone even when they are in a system Stable, so you dont have to take it for granted and you have to nurture and invest out of joy, optimism and great love for your partner.

Artist Exhibitions



The complete list of solo and group exhibitions of the Israeli painter Rafi Peretz
Selected solo exhibitions
1997 - Notebooks and diaries, Curation Department at Camera Obscura - School of Art, Curator Alice Machlis, Chief Curator Reli Avrahami
1998 - Flamengo Restaurant Gallery
2000 – Cafe Theo
2001 - Jerusalem Open House
2002 - Gaim Bagalil, Kiryat Shmona
2002 - The Haifa Forum
2004 - Photogen
2004 – Restaurant - Bar - Shiraz Gallery
2006 - A woman with a tail - an exhibition of drawings before a wedding, Tel Aviv Artists House, curator Daniel Kahana-Levinzon
2008 – The Kiss, Tel Aviv Artists House, Curator Daniel Kahana-Levinson
2008 - Panorama Tel Aviv couple exhibition with Shalom Flesh, Givatayim Municipal Gallery Water Institute, Curator Daniel Kahana-Levinson
2009 – Army of Lovers, Yanko Dada Ein-Hod Museum, Curator Daniel Kahana-Levinson
2009 - Portrait of a community realistic paintings of key activists from the LGBT community, the urban center for the gay community, curator Avi Sofer
2010 - The Open House for Pride and Tolerance, Jerusalem, Curator Ortal Pell
2016 - Mediterranean Fantasy, International Hungarian Center, Nainiy Haoma Jerusalem, Curator Eran Litvin
2017 - Kiryat Gat Intel factory
2017 - Integration of the annual conference of the Association of Construction and Infrastructure Engineers in Israel, the exhibition grounds.
2023 - Solo exhibition at the qu art museum in Suzhou, China

Major group exhibitions in Israel
2003 - In the public domain - a tribute to Tel Aviv city gardener Avraham Karvan, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, curator Tali Tamir
2003 - Ophir Gallery
2004 - Time for Love Images of Romantic Art in Contemporary Israeli Art, Time for Art, Tel Aviv, Curator Tami Katz Freeman
2004 - Kastra Haifa Art Center
2004 - Rimon Gallery - 3 artists
2004 - Alternative Gallery - Jaffa Yards
2004 - Bauhaus Center - Tel Aviv
2005 - In the true colors we are both together, one and the same, Enav Center for Culture, Tel Aviv, curator Daniel Kahana-Levinzon
2005 - Fresco Gallery
2006 - Tools Experiment, Center for Children of the Ages, Tel Aviv, Curator Moran Shove
2006 - Anonymous Exhibition, University of Haifa, Art Gallery, Faculty of Humanities, Haifa
2007 - My Favorite Pornography, Tel Aviv Artists House, Curator Yuval Keder
2007 – Imagination - Israeli Art Exhibition, 2007, Management Building, Bank Hapoalim, Tel Aviv
2007 – Five group exhibitions at the Amiad Center in the flea market in Jaffa, curated by Freddy and Ethi Fabian
2008 - Accidental Exhibition, Ministry Gallery, Tel Aviv, Curator Rachel Sukman
2008 - Tunnel of Time Self-Portrait Exhibition, Water Institute, Yosef Weissman Municipal Gallery, Givatayim
2009 - Urban, Stern Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator Debi Luzia
2009 – White Trash, space in Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, curators Amanda Mel, Shameless and Enbalimor
2009 - Khosoomophobia, Gross Gallery, Tel Aviv, Curator Ziv Tadhar
2010 - Artists Books, Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
2010 - Men and women make beauty, Gross Gallery, Tel Aviv, curator Naomi Shalu
2010 - Nahariya hosts the great city, HaKatsa Center, Nahariya, curator Lee Ramon
2011 – Vanilla Sex, Rosin Design House, Tel Aviv, curators Esther Shlomo and Freddy Fabian
2011 - Protest, The Central Gallery, Tel Aviv Curator Orit Galili
2011 - Proud Look, Gebo Gallery, Tel Aviv, Curator Yohanan Harson
2012 - Without Money, Gross Gallery, Tel Aviv, Curator Itai Zelait
2012 - The Face of the State, The Central Gallery, Tel Aviv, Curator Orit Galili
2014 - The Generous Tree - The Story of the Olive Tree, Umm Al-Fahm Art Gallery, Umm Al-Fahm
2014 - Hangar 2, Jaffa Port
2017 - Same but different, Minus One Gallery, curator Efrat Livni
2017 - Homeland Lesson, Art Workshop Gallery, Yavne
2017 – Israeli naive art, Gina Gallery
2018 - 70 for Israel Blue and White Art an art exhibition in public parking lots of Tel Aviv-Jaffa Aryeh Azan, Baruch Elron, Nachum Gutman, Naftali Bazam, Kadishman, Rafi Peretz, Zoe Saber, Oded Feingersh, curators Iris Elhanani, Doron Folk.
are collecting
2019 - Amiad Center - Exhibition following Eurovision
2020 - Erotica - Ayelet Booker Gallery
2023 - Art Biennale in the city of Suzhou, China at the qu art museum...

Artist Collections



422 original artworks on private collection ( today 12/2010)
I do live only from sale art for the last 11 years
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