Asad Azi
b. 1955, Shefa-'Amr (Shfar'am), Israel; lives and works in Jaffa.

​

Asad Azi is a teacher, a poet, a critic, but first and foremost—he is a painter. His art is consciously eclectic, consisting of different features and elements, at times contradictory. His artistic language strives to balance form and color to deal with a complex subject. In his painting, he deconstructs and reconstructs materials and themes using color and form.

On the truck, Azi painted The Horseman-Messiah. "The image of the horseman began to appear in my work in the mid-1980s. It was an adventurous young man who wanted to conquer the world and tried his luck riding a noble wild horse, that refused to be a pawn in the hands of another's desires. The horse even tried with all its might to throw the cheeky boy off his back, but the rider acrobatically held his body on the horse's back and refused to fall. The horseman grew older, wiser, and more experienced, and the horse came to terms with his fate and duty to bring his rider to a safe haven. But the hand of fate changed the course of the story.

The horse gradually came to resemble a donkey, and the rider came closer to being a prophet at the gate, even a messiah. He announced his arrival, but without a given destination and direction, he was forced to invent a role and meaning for himself while transforming his calling from a messiah to an entertaining acrobat, trying to maintain his stability on the back of his donkey. In the meantime, the donkey transformed into a rocking donkey, thus completing another circle, as the galloping animal runs in place. The messiah has lost interest in his mission, has retreated to the position of the feeble-minded, perhaps insane, rushing nowhere and demanding nothing.

 

At that moment the scene froze, and this image that propels the Flying Cargo truck burst out of its deep freeze, deviating from its boundaries."

Self-taught. Professor of art at the Midrasha School of Art, Beit Berl Academic College, and the University of Haifa; previously taught at Tel Hai College in the country's north.

​

​Courtesy of Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem