Gabriella Klein
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Gabriella Klein is a painter based in Tel Aviv. She grew up in the US with two painter parents and a poet stepfather. She did commercial murals for over a decade before painting took over. Her subjects are always people close to her, family and daily life, and lately a lot of them are hugging. She says that started during the past few years, when life in her part of the world began to feel more fragile and tenderness felt more urgent. She recently showed Night Train at the Petach Tikva Museum of Art.
Q: You come from a family of artists, but you were doing murals and illustration for a long time before going in this direction. How did painting start for you?
A: Yes, my mother and father are both painters, and my stepdad is a poet. It wasn’t always romantic—I saw them struggle to make a living, and that made me choose a more practical path at first. But studying at SAIC and MassArt, where art history was emphasized across every department, really got me excited about painting. In my final year of art school, a course with the late painter George Nick made me realize how much I was drawn to painting and its sense of personal freedom. I never formally worked as an illustrator, but the skills I learned—especially in drawing—have been invaluable for both my murals and my paintings.
Q: Your subjects are always close to you: family, people in your daily life. How do you decide what becomes a painting?
A: It starts with something I notice in everyday life—a juxtaposition of shapes, a bodily gesture. It’s as if my mind runs a quick simulation, imagining the motions of painting. Something suggests a painting.
From there, the image passes through a series of filters. I’ll often take out my phone and photograph what I see. The next step might be a sketch or a small oil pastel drawing. Sometimes it stops there, other times it grows into a full-scale painting on canvas. The meaning tends to emerge through the process rather than directing it in advance.
Q: The Departure is based on a family photo taken in Prague, the moment of parting. Your family is spread across four continents. What made that image a painting?
A: What struck me in the photo was how the bodies interacted, forming one harmonious mass—arms draped and crisscrossed, heads leaning on heads, backs and shoulders overlapping.
The photo was cropped at the legs, which gave me room to invent them. While flipping through a Max Beckmann book, I saw a figure that echoed my nephew’s pose, and using that as a reference helped me complete the bodies. I love those moments—when a painting takes on a life of its own.
Q: Lately you've been painting figures hugging. When did that start?
A: It started during my time at the La Brea Studio Residency in LA last year. I photograph and draw real situations, so the work reflects what is happening around me. The past few years have been intense in my part of the world—marked by violence, war, and loss—and life can feel fragile. Tenderness and embraces suddenly felt more necessary than ever. What once may have felt like sentimental imagery now feels urgent and transformative.
Q: You mention fabric, hair, bodies in space as things you keep coming back to. Why those?
A: I keep returning to these because I’m drawn both to their sensuality and the way they can be painted. For example, I can paint hair as a mass of light and shadow using a large brush, or focus on individual strands as texture and pattern. Because these elements lend themselves to abstraction, they give me the freedom to interpret them as both realistic, tactile, and abstract. Conceptually, I’m painting with brushes made of hair on a surface made of fabric.
Q: You've done residencies in LA, Austria, Berlin, China. What are you working toward right now?
A: I’ve recently finished new paintings exploring daydreaming and embracing figures, which will be shown in a group exhibition at Yusto/Giner Gallery in Madrid this May.
