Shai Zurim

Shai Zurim - Bio

Shai Zurim was born in Israel, and earned his BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Zurim’s work draws on a wide range of influences, combining art historical, literary, and pop culture references through play with a wide range of materials, which he utilizes with mobility, quickness, and humor. Zurim is a 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow and a member of the Elizabeth Foundation For The Arts Studio Program. Solo shows include "Survival-Guide" at the Rosenfeld Gallery in Tel Aviv (2012) and “Worms & Lions” at the Tel Aviv Museum (2008). Zurim was also guest artist at the Edvard Munch retrospective at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2012. Zurim is the recipient of several prizes, including the Eugen Kolb Prize for Israeli Graphic Art 2009, the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award (2008), and the Isracard and Tel-Aviv Museum of Art Prize for an Israeli Artist (2009). He was a finalist for the Gotesdiner Prize (2008), and has exhibited at the Vivian Horan Fine Art Gallery in New York (2006) and the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum of Art in Berlin(2005). Zurim published a book of drawings, entitled Real Flowers, Real Gifts, to accompany his 2005 solo show at the Sommer Contemporary Art Gallery in Tel-Aviv. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.