Abraham Kritzman: Pillars of Hope

Preview: 7 September 2026
Open by appointment

Pillars of Hope is a series of ceramic sculptures, containing smaller sculptural elements placed within or on top of the larger forms, while others carry reliefs or painted glaze drawings on their surfaces.The sculptures evolved organically in the studio while Kritzman was thinking about how large and small elements can exist together without one becoming the base, support, or decoration of the other. Kritzman was interested in creating relationships between forms that feel unstable, playful, and interdependent.

The series takes inspiration from ancient Mediterranean pottery, especially hand-built coil vessels with decorative elements that seem to contradict or interrupt the original form or function of the object. These references sparked a way of thinking through attachment, ornament, and excess.While making the works, Kritzman aimed for the sculptures to remain playful and intuitive, but also to carry a heavier or darker undertone. Their rough surfaces, openings, protrusions, and stacked elements suggest forms that sit somewhere between vessel, body, fragment, and creature.

Abraham Kritzman lives and works between Tel Aviv and London. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem before completing an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2014. His multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, printmaking, and ceramics, exploring intersections of memory, material, mythology, and states of introspection. Drawing from research-based encounters with historically and culturally charged locations, his works construct fragmented narratives in which solitude, symbolism, and tactile processes converge.

Kritzman is the recipient of the Clore Prize and Scholarship, the Villiers David Travel Award, the Minister of Culture Prize, the Hermann Struck Prize for Printmaking, and the Aileen Cooper Prize. His work is held in the collections of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, the Clore Foundation, and the RCA Collection.

Selected solo and duo exhibitions include Elizabeth Xi Bauer; Danielle Arnaud; Hezi Cohen; Sally’s Fault; and Atelier 35. Selected group exhibitions include Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; SMAC South Africa; Ashdod Art Museum; the Negev Museum of Art and Bradwolff Projects Amsterdam.