In the last two weeks of August, the New York art world seems to come to a halt. Many of the galleries in Chelsea are closed or keeping reduced hours, and others are showing group exhibitions instead of solo shows. This pause lets them reveal their own tone and artistic direction, present young artists alongside familiar names, and prepare for the opening of the fall season.

But! There is one gallery that, right now, is opening a solo exhibition, and not just any solo, but one by an artist of our own who is well worth knowing.

Oren Fischer.

Fischer was one of the founders of the "Meshunar" gallery in Tel Aviv, an alternative space that gave a platform to young local artists, with no self censorship and no compromises. Three years later he won the Sotheby's Hammer Prize at the young artists' greenhouse of the Fresh Paint fair, a win that led to a solo exhibition in Sotheby's space in Tel Aviv. Since then he has worked across a wide range of mediums and scales, from small etchings to monumental works in public space.

This week his first solo exhibition in New York opened, "Hallel," at 81 Leonard Gallery in Tribeca.

The story behind the exhibition is unusual too. It grew out of a collaboration with Havurah, a young Jewish collective of artists, designers, and curators from New York, dedicated to advancing contemporary Jewish culture. The members of the collective made the connection to the gallery and even funded the exhibition.

At the center of the space hang six enormous canvases, each about five meters tall, originally created as the set for a performance in Israel and now turning the gallery into a kind of temple. Around them are some 70 wooden sculptures, paintings that were cut and reassembled on wooden boards, etchings, and illustrated newspapers Fischer made while living on Kibbutz Samar.

But the works are not only impressive in scale. Fischer moves between the figurative and the abstract, between the personal and the collective, connecting biblical stories to contemporary Israeli reality. He engages with heritage, spirituality, belonging, and loneliness, bringing together again and again past and present, pain and joy, sacrifice and hope. Figures of mothers and soldiers, symbols of fertility and protection, and a human landscape made up of Jews and Arabs coexist within a complex vision of Israeli society, not necessarily as it is, but as it might yet become.

"Hallel" is an expression of praise and gratitude, for love, for the wisdom of generations, and for home. And that is exactly what Fischer does here: he does not soften the pain, but casts direct light on it while holding alongside it the beauty, the hope, and the gratitude.

To be an Israeli artist in New York right now is not something to take for granted. But Fischer, as always, chooses the light.

📍 81 Leonard Gallery, Tribeca, New York
📅 "Hallel," through September 5. Wednesday to Saturday, 12:00 to 18:00 (or by appointment)