Avri Ohana

Born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1939, Avri Ohana emigrated to Israel at the age of thirteen. Kibbutz educated, he later went on to study painting and sculpture in Israel’s major art schools under such prominent artists as European Dadaist, Marcel Janco, and the Director of the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem, Dan Hoffner. Ohana also attended the Oranim Art School and culminated his formal studies with a teaching certificate in art from the Ministry of Education in Tel Aviv. He then taught art in Israel and spent six months in Paris working under Jacob Agam before moving to the United States.

Ohana has done set design for the Haifa Theater in Israel and the Grand Opera in San Francisco, graphic design for ABC Television, and operated and taught his own art school in San Bernardino, California. He is a member of the Ein Hod Artists’ Village in Israel, and has participated in one-man and group shows in major cities in Israel, Europe and the United States.

Ohana’s works are virtual wonderlands of rich, ripe, multicolored “prime” paintings that consist of paintings-within-paintings. Vistas open up within vistas, while deceptively simple interiors disclose a multitude of other subjects. There is a strong sense of nature in Ohana’s works and an expression of freshness, open spaces, and far horizons of the outdoors. His works are an orchestration of the old with the new, the primitive with the sophisticated, and the ordinary with the fantastic. They are treats for the eye, the senses, and the imagination and will take you to places you will want to visit again and again.

Avri Ohana’s work draws its subject matter from his love of nature and the outdoor life and is also influenced by the rhythms of New York City where he now lives.