Albertz Benda is pleased to present Tsibi Geva: SUBSTRATA, on view from January 9 through February 15, 2020. The exhibition features a new body of work created over the past two years, defined by Geva’s focus on deconstruction and abstraction to convey the emotional and cultural tenor of his surroundings.

Motifs of terrazzo tiles, stone walls, and latticework, which have been prevalent in Geva’s paintings since the nineteen-nineties, are pushed to the forefront in these new works. These Mediterranean urban patterns, once abstracted, become a reflection of a collective subconscious, revealing a conflicted, restless landscape where borders are in a constant negotiation.

The various patterns are applied in layers that flow into one another, in entropic fashion. With expressive and spontaneous gestures, Geva collapses the distance between the precarious cultural amalgam of the present and the region’s splintered history. Transcending familiar schemas and grids, Geva continuously constructs, erases, and builds from the found remnants of his process to produce paintings that oscillate between various compositional options within a single canvas.

Born in 1951 at Kibbutz Ein Shemer, Israel, Geva lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel and Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from the Beit Berl School of Arts, Israel and proceeded to study at the New York Studio School, New York.

Concurrent to the show at albertz benda, his work is the subject of a major exhibition at the Herzliya Museum of Art, Israel on view through February 1, 2020. Geva’s work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions at international institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The American University Museum, Washington, DC; MACRO Testaccio Museum, Rome; Mönchenhaus – Museum of Modern Art in Goslar, Germany, and at Israel’s leading museums, including the Haifa Museum of Art; the Ashdod Art Museum, Monart Center; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and a retrospective at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

From 1990 to 2005 Geva was represented in New York by Annina Nosei Gallery. His work is found in the permanent collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Rothfeld Collection, Washington DC; The Burger Collection, Zurich; The Jewish Museum, New York; and the Tel Aviv Museum of art among others. In 2015, Geva was chosen to represent Israel at the 2015 Venice Biennale.