Israeli knesset, opening, January 17, 2022 "The new year for the trees" exhibition text : Yehudit Gidali. Ilan was born in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem to a religious family. As a youth, his father sent him to study art at the School of Painting and Sculpture founded by Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz and even traveled with him on a tour of museums in Italy. Ilan then studied archeology and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ilan's works are characterized by great creative ability and by sophisticated and complex composition. His work has a raw nature, a sense of touching the materials. The art reflects influences from many genres – impressionist art, renaissance art, and classical culture – but it is all grounded in the Land of Israel, in the here and now, while providing a local and personal touch. Ilan is not a studio artist; he goes out into the field, takes in the landscape and the people he finds, and develops a relationship with them. His paintings include panoramic views of Jerusalem and the landscapes of Judea and Samaria, which form part the landscape nearby to his residence in Modi'in. He paints the landscapes and objects he sees. But this perception is not photographic. Reality is not objective. It is a personal observation, which derives from his personality, from his being, and it reveals more about him and his soul than about the place or the item being painted. Many of his paintings are above place and time – the peaceful and intimate landscapes of Jerusalem, the landscapes of the ancient fallow fields in the hills of Judea and Samaria – with nothing to indicate when the subjects were painted. At first glance, the paintings look simple and clear. A second and deeper look reveals many details – people, objects, various animals. Many of the paintings depict the Land of Israel of today – objects and people that Ilan encounters: Arab shepherds, Breslav hasidim, residents of Judea and Samaria, an IDF post, and more. Sometimes, the painting is panoramic, zoomed-out, encompassing the entire field of vision. Sometimes the focus is on one detail that captures the whole picture – a sabra bush or even just its fruit, a pomegranate, a cypress. Ilan has presented in many exhibitions in Israel and around the world, including “The Cactus: Introspections” at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2004 (curator: Aya Luria) and “It was Never Truly a Wilderness” at the Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan in 2013 (curator: Meir Aharonson). Shevat 5782 // January 2022.