Artist Name: Shony Rivnay
Residency Dates: April – May 2026
Born: 1952
Hometown: Tel Aviv
Lives & Works: Tel Aviv / New York
URL: shonyrivnay.com | Instagram: @shonyrivnay
Education:
1979 – B.A. Fine Arts, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel
Bio/Statement:
Shony Rivnay’s practice centers on painting as an inquiry, exploring how time and experiences manifest in abstract processes. Working primarily with acrylic and oil on canvas, his compositions develop through a meditative experience, ensuring sustained attention to gesture and spatial relationships. Rivnay’s painting process is non-hierarchical; canvases are placed on the ground as he moves around them, shifting orientation and pace. Multiple paintings are worked on simultaneously, influencing one another while an internal coherence appears. Orientation is never predetermined, enabling elements to float, collide, and settle, and producing dynamic compositions. His recent body of work cultivates a visual language that operates between structure and intuition, embracing memory and the unknown as generative forces. Trial and error are central to his practice, functioning as productive tools that open formal possibilities.
Shony Rivnay has exhibited solo and group exhibitions in international locations, including: Hamburger Bahnhof Museum (Germany); SPRING/BREAK Art Fair (NYC); Nulobaz Cooperative Art Space (IS); The TL STUDIO (NYC); Bosi Contemporary (NYC); Tavi Dresdner Gallery (IS); TEMP Art Space (NYC); Youkobo Art Space (Tokyo); CICA Museum (South Korea); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (IS); Negev Museum of Art (IS); and Ein Hod Museum of Art (IS), among many others. Rivnay has participated in the prestigious I-Park Residency (USA) and HomeBase Residency (Germany), and his works are in private and public collections worldwide. His upcoming monograph, published by Sternthal Books, will be launched in NYC in Spring 2026.
