Life & Work with Alef

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alef.

Hi Alef, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I have been creating my whole life but only started my “professional” art career at the age of 28. I studied in a foundation program for fine art at Central Saint Martins in London, England at the age of 18 but after a tough year I felt that I was not as good as my peers and I did not continue my studies. It took me about nine years to start creating again. I was studying for my BA in Culture Studies at Sapir College in Sderot, Israel and started to be very inspired by the thought that every song, book, movie and artwork can be read as a text and have a profound impact on culture and the world. At that same time, I was working as a gallerist and curator and was great at helping artists perfect their language and price their works for sale but I felt that something was missing and I began to feel jealous of the artists I was working with and that’s when something just switched and I realized that there is enough room on the world for everyone to do what they love and express themselves and so in between work and school I would go out to the rundown grungey streets of the then neglected south Tel Aviv neighborhood of Florentin and that’s when my alter ego, super Hero and life saver Alef was truly born!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Life as an artist is not a simple road there are great highs and low lows. There is a lack of “stability” that modern society has taught us to idolize but from experience, even the most stable job at the most successful company is not guaranteed. I choose to live a life where my income of the next months or next years is not guaranteed and it is entirely up to me creating and building my dreams one day at a time. When COVID-19 hit and the world shut down, I was at the end of an extremely difficult year trying to make my way and provide myself with a respectable living from art. It was a hard time but I had made it and was reaping the benefits. Unfortunately, the pandemic threw me back into a regular day job and slowed me down for 2+ years where I spent most of my days in a high-tech job that did nothing for my soul. Gratefully I endured and managed to find the courage to resign to pick up my passion where I had left off.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I consider myself a multi-disciplinary artist and my current focus for the last 8+ years os street art and paintings on canvases with the fairly new medium of augmented reality joining my ouvre in the last 4+ years. I have been painting buildings and cranes for over eight years with the idea that cranes are international symbols of work and building and of processes that require time and dedication and that the social media picture-perfect world that is presented online today is one that disregards the hard work and dedication behind the scenes. I am most proud of seeing people from all over the world connect with my work and messages and I am extremely proud to have had my art be featured on the social media of international celebrity Sarah Jessica Parker who stumbled upon my art on a tour to South Tel Aviv.

I am also incredibly honoured to have had my work presented to a member of the Dubai Royal family but most of all I am proud when I get messaged by people from all over the world who found meaning and joy and inspiration in my work as that is what I truly desire more than fame and money, to inspire. My work is simple and celebrates the imperfections and allows me to bring my young soul to the world through imperfect urban landscapes that may lack in symmetry but make up for this in style and soul.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Trust the process and keep going and everything I make is beautiful it just sometimes takes me a while to have the right perspective to see it!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artbyalef.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/artbyalef/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artbyalef?mibextid=ZbWKwL
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/artbyalef?t=2zJdpqVUqCN-U4hxMyYNZA&s=09

Image Credits
Portrait image by Tamar Shemesh