Hagai Farago is a printmaker living and creating in Tel aviv, Jaffa. Fascinated with the potential of prints to point out and celebrate symbols and beliefs, through his art Hagai researches his past and finds a new perspective on his Hebrew language and heritage.
Print has been a part of Hagai’s life since he can remember. His father works in process printing for the food packaging industry, and as a child he was mesmerised by the colossal machines bringing images and slogans to life. He tells us; “When I came across screen printing years later, I was enthused how printmaking took me out on a dynamic dance between the ‘artistic’ and the ‘commercial’.”
For Hagai, printmaking is a form of communication that makes sense in multiple ways. On the one hand, he strives for his prints to be alluring and harmonious, and on the other hand, his prints convey a more intimate commentary on the present and the past of Hebrew-Israeli People.
Every print he makes starts by pointing out something; a sign, an archaeological site, a graphic pattern used by some local farmer’s family. “It is my personal model of Pop Art,” comments the printmaker. These fragments, taken from the outside world, are those that Hagai believes hold the potential to reveal something about the soul within.
The elegance of the silkscreen’s vivid colour fields often leads him when he is planning out a new print edition. Hagai frequently uses an array of paper cut-outs to form the compositions of his prints, creating blocks of uniform colour. These are then complemented by bizarre imagery he finds in “dark corners” of archives. The screen’s tendency to divide the work into distinct colour tones encourages him to find clear, vibrant graphic interpretation to the visuals he has gathered together in the studio.
Nowadays, Hagai’s creative home for printing and teaching is Hamelaha Studio in Jaffa, Israel. It was here that he discovered screen printing for the first time, 10 years ago. At Hamelaha, Hagai can experience the joy of living and breathing screen printing. He divides his time between teaching classes and workshops, producing commercial prints on clothing, and collaborating with artists in fine-art print fantasies. Hagai states; “The diverse nature of our studio expresses the magic of the print medium, I believe. When holding a screen, one’s self expression can be sometimes personal or enigmatic, and at times bold and utilitarian. That is my motivation to keep on exploring the medium of printmaking: in my prints I find my voice.”
www.hagaifarago.com
@hagai_farago
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