Roei Greenberg
Roei Greenberg
Plus VAT if applicable
Interloper, 2019, from the series English Encounters
Archival pigment print
36 x 45 cm
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
120 x 150 cm
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
About this work
The rural walk is a well-known English cultural practice. Though it may be civil, the act of walking itself is rooted in an ideology from the artist's own cultural background; to walk the land is to know the land, and therefore suggests belonging, entitlement and ownership. Greenberg surveys the English countryside, becoming familiar with the island’s geography, in an act of mapping that refers to imperial and colonial histories.
Pertaining to Romanticism, he appropriates the visual rules of the picturesque; traditionally used to create an illusion of social and natural harmony. The dramatic light and weather conditions combined with forensic attention to details and on-site interventions intend to provoke the ambiguous feelings of seduction and alienation. Poetic and alluring yet tinged with irony, the images seek to disrupt traditional modes of representation in a place where land ownership and social hierarchy have shaped the form and perception of the landscape for centuries.
About Roei Greenberg
Roei Greenberg is a London based, Israeli artist. He has recently completed an MA Photography, with distinction from The Royal College of Art, and also holds a BA in Photography from Minshar Art College, Tel Aviv. His photographic practice is concerned with landscape as a complex intersection between culture, geography and autobiography. The effects of human activity on land, political borders and ecology are amongst the issues investigated in his work. Through the use of large format cameras and film, he creates multi-layered photographic perspectives, seeking to disrupt traditional modes of landscape representation. He has dedicated years to investigating the Israeli landscape, its geography and historical narratives in relation to his own biography; leading to his award winning series entitled Along the Break. In 2018, he left Israel to attend the RCA, and in his search for a new subject matter, found himself once again drawn to questions of land and power, belonging and legitimacy. His work now combines an objective aesthetic with a strong emphasis on thorough research. Greenberg’s work has received vast recognition and exposure, showing in museums and galleries such as: Aperture Gallery (NY), South London Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery, The Benaki Museum (Athens), the Israel Museum (Tel-Aviv) and Webber Gallery (London), to name a few. As well as several nominations and awards such as the Sony World Photography Awards (2014, landscape category), Magnum Photography Awards (2017), Meitar Photography Award (2017), Arles Voies Off Awards (2019), Prix Levallois (2017+2020), The Genesis Postgraduate Bursary Award (2020) and The Human Rights Photography Prize (2020). He was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2019, and his recent body of work entitled English Encounters, was selected by Professor Andreas Gursky, when invited to curate his selection from the RCA 2020 graduates.
The heightened consciousness about the destruction of the environment makes us increasingly aware of what, in different ways, has always pertained: landscape is a political text. Who decides where we build our homes, how we grow our food, how much space we leave for nature? After all, we’re in the throes of an epoch-making environmental crisis, with our land scoured of species and natural habitats after decades of intensive farming.
Education
2018-2020 Royal College of Art, London, MA Photography
2009-2013 Minshar College, Tel Aviv, BA Photography
Awards and Prizes
2020 Act on Your Future Foundation - Human Rights Photography Prize, finalist, Geneva
2020 The Genesis Postgraduate Bursary Award – Commended Project
2020 Prix Levallois, finalist, Galerie L’Escale, Levallois (France)
2019 Voies Off Awards, finalist, Arles (France)
2017 Local Testimony, winner ‘Photographed Story’, Tel Aviv (Israel)
2017 Meitar Photography Award, finalist, Photo IS:RAEL, Tel Aviv (Israel)
2017 Magnum Photography Awards by Lensculture, finalist, London (UK)
2014 Sony World Photography Awards, 1st place - landscape, London (UK)
Selected Exhibitions
2020 London Grads Now, Saatchi Gallery, London
2020 English Encounters, Fordham University Gallery (online)
2020 with fists, it kicks, it bites, Webber Gallery, London
2020 Final Not Over, Unit 1 Gallery|Worksop, London
2020 RCA 2020 (online)
2019/2020 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds/South London Gallery, London
2020 IPE162, Royal Photographic Society House, Bristol
2019 PhEST International Photography Festival, Monopoli
2019 Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Marrakech
2019 Addis FotoFest, Addis-Ababa
2018 The Way We Live Now, Aperture Gallery, New York
2018 Encontros da Imagem, Braga
2018 Fotofestiwal, Lodz
2018 ONE Gallery, Critical Mass, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2017 Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum, Athens
2017 Fresh Paint, Tel Aviv
2017 Location, Location, Location, Ildiko Butler Gallery, New York
2017 Local Testimony, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv