About

The Artistic Practice of Michal Zakai

Michal Zakai is a Tel Aviv–based painter originally from Kibbutz Shamir. Her artistic practice is deeply intertwined with her academic background: she holds a BA in Physical Therapy from Tel Aviv University and an MA in Medical Sciences from the Technion. A member of both the Israeli Visual Artists Association and the Association for Women's Art and Gender Studies, Zakai’s work reflects a commitment to exploring complex emotional and psychological themes through a diverse and often collage-based painting practice.

Zakai’s process is rooted in multiplicity and juxtaposition, likened to assembling a puzzle. This methodology allows her to move away from narrative illustration and instead focus on the elemental components of painting—form, color, stain, and line. Her investigation of materials situates her work within the tradition of painting while simultaneously pushing its boundaries, particularly in her embroidered and mixed-media pieces.

Her content frequently draws on formative childhood experiences in the kibbutz, using personal memory as an entry point into broader inquiries around home, early identity, and the parent-child relationship. A transformative moment in her practice came during a health crisis in the summer of 2016, during that period, she began painting cyclamens in black ink. These flowers, symbols of her childhood became emblems of innocence and vitality. Their reappearance in her series Black Cyclamens, exhibited at Tova Osman Gallery in 2018, marked the convergence of memory, fragility, and mortality.

Five years later, in her 2023 solo exhibition Seeking to Blossom, held at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, Zakai returned to the same image—this time with a renewed presence: softer, more conciliatory, and filled with hope. Her 2019 exhibition Plaid Shirt, held at the Tel Aviv Artists’ House, returned to her kibbutz upbringing through the image of the plaid shirt. These oil-on-canvas works deconstructed and reassembled the iconic garment, using it as a metaphor for collective identity, moral rigidity, and the possibilities of personal interpretation and difference.

Zakai's 2022 solo exhibition Embraced at Office Galley in Tel Aviv, continued her inquiry into the emotional imprints of early life. The central series, First Embrace, explored the formative role of parental touch in shaping a newborn's sense of self and security. The birth of her granddaughters prompted a reflection on her own infancy in the kibbutz, where child-rearing practices often involved separation from parental touch.

Alongside the First Embrace, she exhibited Formation Series, a visual meditation on pregnancy based on sonographic imagery. In these works, Zakai reimagines clinical scans as aesthetic and autonomous visual objects, offering fresh material and chromatic interpretations.

Through her evolving practice, Michal Zakai weaves together memory, emotional resonance, and the sensory textures of lived experience. Her work is a quiet yet powerful testament to the long-lasting impact of early life and the delicate structures of care, loss, and belonging.

Michal Zakai is an artist who lives and works in Tel Aviv and a physiotherapist by profession.

B.A. Physiotherapy - Tel Aviv University

M.A. Medical Sciences - Technion Haifa

Member of the "Plastic Artists Professional Union of Israel"

Member of the "Israel Women & Gender Art Research Association"

Recently focuses on oil and gouache painting as well as drawing with pencil and charcoal.

Studied at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art as well as in private workshops with leading artists: Rachel Shavit, Leo Rey, Revital Ben-Asher Peretz, Nadav Weismann, Merav Shin Ben-Alon, Gai Avital, Ran Tenenbaum, Boaz Levental.

Attends enrichment programs in culture and fine arts at Tel Aviv University.