Portfolio

“Most artists in the world don’t want people to touch their art because it may ruin their pieces. This is how I’m different to other people in a surprising way. The element of connection is going to make more people come to see my art in the opening. I want to change viewers relationship to art in a memorable way.

For the Please Do Touch Series, I choose 5 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and represented the good and the bad - what would happen if we completed the goals and what would happen if we didn’t.”

The Please Do Touch series of installations connect art, social issues, environmental topics and disability awareness. The installations are part of the Taking Action! UNESCO project that Yaniv Janson launched 5 years ago.

The installations focus on high priority themes which address the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Yaniv is working on creating new art for this exhibition and plans to travel in New Zealand to consult with the disability community and so be able to integrate their ideas into his work. This would make this project the first collective one of its kind.

Art can facilitate the complex understanding between humankind and its environment through alternative languages involving all our senses. Please Do Touch installations make use of visual, body, oral and kinetic languages to speak to the variety of human experiences - to collaborate and work on humanity’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“The reason why I created this series of works is because I wanted to see how much of the canvas I could cover without using a paint brush. The aim was to pour the colours separately on the canvas without mixing them. It was an experiment to see how much of the white canvas I can cover by just tilting it in different ways. The reason why I poured 22 whole Resene test pots is because 22 is my favourite number and my favourite birthday was my 22nd birthday. This work is part of an experimental project exploring different movements and drawing from everyday life experiences of blowing, throwing, dripping, splattering and pouring.

For the first work in this collection, I searched for my earliest transformational experiences – when as a young child I watched batter meeting the hot surface and transforming into yummy pancakes. My investigation of how blobs of acrylic act as a medium in reacting with the fabric as they spread over the canvas, letting the pancakes of paint form, is located within the expressive abstract movement.”

Deepest thanks to Resene who sponsored this project.

The Rich people live in these two areas of houses:

1. The many different coloured houses on the parts of the back mountains

2. The row of 10 houses that are two different kinds of browns which are by the sea

The Middle Class people live by the bottom of the mountain in the silver houses which are in between tall trees at the back of the painting.

The Poor people live in the bush behind the lake that is on the right hand side of the painting in deep green bushes.

Yaniv's explanation of his "Everybody's Lives" painting.

The Mind's Eye Collection series of installations shows a number of places throughout New Zealand that Yaniv has visited and showcases the natural beauty found within our country.