Shoshi Khayat

Biography

Born to the Goldman family, a second generation Holocaust survivor in Cluj, Transylvania, Romania. In 1950, she immigrated to Israel. Her childhood and youth were unbearably difficult as her father abandoned her as a baby and her mother committed suicide when she was a 12-year-old girl. In 1964, she married the painter Yaakov Khayat. The couple has two daughters and 5 grandchildren.

Education

1961-1964 - Art studies at WIZO France. Among her teachers were the artists and painters: Alexander Bogen, Shmuel Tefler, Moshe Rosenthalis, and Yitzhak Yuresh.

1984-1986 - Sculpture studies at the Bat Yam Art Institute. Main teacher: sculptor Yaakov Epstein.

Artistic Style

Khayat was nicknamed the "Clown Painter" because the human figures in her paintings often wear masks. Symmetry, tranquility, authority, and color calmness acted as shock absorbers against the harsh reality. In her works, Khayat allowed finding many shades and sometimes left only black and white, seemingly simple pencil drawings, to express diverse human expressions such as wisdom, innocence, cunning, and misery.

Among her works is the triptych, reflecting the difficult life story of the artist from her childhood, which she described and named, into the circus arena of Shoshi’s life. With her personality, similar to the mask in her works, she covers her emotions with a cloak resembling "circus romance", thus distancing the viewer from walking on the thin rope of her personal memories.

Although dealing with the clown figure allows for it, it is difficult to find farce, crudeness, or slapstick in her works, as most of the characters, including the sculptures she created, seem to bear the burden of passivity.

An example of using the creator's visual circus lexicon was present in her series of Bible paintings, where traditional characters wear clown masks. From this series, a painting named "Joseph was Torn to Pieces" (from the scene of the coat of many colors after Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites) stands out, serving as both allegory and analogy to her inner feelings and personal story.

In one of the interviews she gave to the media, she explained the depth of her work and the connection to clown figures:

"I use the clown figure to illustrate the complexity of human beings and their need to hide behind masks. A clown is a person who wears a mask; we all wear masks. Most of the time, we cover the truth with masks to fit into our surroundings. The clown is me, and I cannot escape from that."