Olga Kundina
b. 1965

b. 1965

Bird of Paradise Flower, 2024,
Oil on canvas, 92x65 cm.
Signed and dated on the reverse.

"The New Barbizon" is a group of female artists operating in Israel since 2010, comprised of five artists who are former Soviet Union natives who immigrated to Israel: Natalia Zourabova, Asya Lukin, Anna Lukashevsky, Zoya Cherkassky, and Olga Kundina. Over the years, The New Barbizon group has become one of the leading streams in Israeli art, with highly acclaimed exhibitions at the Bar-David Museum (2017), the Ein Harod Art Museum, the Haifa Museum, the Bat Yam Museum, the Negev Museum, and more.

The choice of the group's name refers to the Barbizon School, a well-known artists' movement that operated in the Barbizon village in France in the 19th century. The artists of the school belonged to the Realism movement, which opposed the Romantic Movement and sought to venture into nature to capture the moment that is alive, authentic, transient, and ever-changing. The captured moment is the most current, thus folding within it moments from the concurrent social reality.

These ideas continue with the artistic activity of "The New Barbizon" group in the 21st century, as the artists choose to venture into nature and the complex reality existing in the country to paint from the heart of difficulty and drama. Therefore, the artistic activity of the group includes joint painting sessions that took place parallel to various social events, such as painting during the "Million March" as part of the social protest in Israel in 2011 or painting in the Bedouin village, Al-Hiran, in 2014. Similar to the Barbizon School, and as a result of the female artists' descent to paint in the 'field', they can capture critical moments in Israeli society while challenging the conventions of traditional painting and providing new meaning in the social and cultural context of Israel.

Medidas con marco:

65 x 92 cm