During her artist residency, Israeli artist Anna Lukashevsky is out and about in the city, painting and sketching. Starting from her studio in the 25hours Hotel, she observes the neighbourhood around Europaallee and Langstrasse. The artist sketches the newly created, gentrified landscape of Europaallee, which appears empty, cool and futuristic compared to the chaotic everyday life in Tel Aviv. In contrast, Langstrasse, just a few metres away, shows the other face of Zurich: during the day a neighbourhood with character and street life, at night the street becomes a noisy consumer and nightlife mile with red lights.
In her studio, the artist works with oil paint on several medium-sized canvases at the same time. The paintings show views of the city, or the view from the hotel of the railway tracks, the concrete architecture and the sky over Zurich. The paintings and sketches, including quick studies of the hotel’s guests or portraits of hotel employees, will be exhibited in the hotel’s studio at the end of the exhibition and a zine will be published.
message salon embassy Zine No. 7, “Europaallee” Anna Lukashevsky, b/w, edition of 150 copies. © 2017 Anna Lukashevsky & message salon
Anna Lukashevsky was first invited to Zurich by message salon embassy in 2015. The artist lives and works in Haifa and Tel Aviv, and is a member of the artist group “New Barbizon”, a collective of female painters who were all born in the Soviet Union and emigrated to Israel with their families. “New Barbizon” brings figurative painting back into contemporary art. The book that has just been published on the occasion of the first major joint exhibition of “New Barbizon” in Israel is entitled “Back to Live”.