Guy Yanai

Guy Yanai is recognised for his simplified shapes, vibrant colours, flattened depth of field, and curiously common subject matter. Whether a still life of plants, a living room / kitchen space, or suburban architecture, he flattens the image and abstracts it to the point of neutrality and objectiveness. Often painting in geometric blocks, akin to the pixelated screens and over-digitalisation of the twenty-first century, his oversimplified representations compress the gigabytes of data we perceive and receive on a daily basis. In almost direct contrast with this, the lithographic print Yanai produced with CCA Galleries is much more organic, simplified but still reliant on the heavily linear style that defines his work. Across the breadth of his practice, Yanai encourages an investigation into the perception of space, triggering a glitch of timelessness and ‘nowhere-ness’. Openly influenced by TV, digital imagery and advertisements as much as old modern and contemporary masters such as Matisse, Hockney, and Guston in both content and colour palette, there is a strong connection that dials up between Yanai, European art, and our increasingly digital world.