Ofra Ohana
Ofra Ohana is a Berlin-based painter and a recent recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. She studied in Israel, where she completed her B.F.A., before continuing her practice in Tel Aviv. She later moved to Leipzig, completing her Meisterschüler degree (2018–2021) with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Ohana has exhibited internationally, including at Thaler Originalgrafik, BBK Galerie Leipzig, P8 Gallery, Haifa Museum of Art, Galerie Rothamel, Galerie Waidspeicher, Klein Humboldt Galerie, and Galerie Leuenroth.
She relocated to Berlin in 2022 and has been working from her studio at BBK Berlin since 2024.
Artist Statement
In my work, I focus on the ordinary home environment, rendering the quiet, often overlooked rhythms of domestic life. In recent years, my practice has been shaped by displacement, motherhood, and a sustained commitment to painting.
I work between subjective intuition and observed reality, seeking the tension between the recognizable and the emotional, an unwavering pursuit to discover the essence of painting beyond the confines of the subject matter.
The paintings often depict scenes from ordinary domestic life: a sink full of dirty dishes, laundry piling up, or a child eating his dinner, placed alongside more playful compositions. In Domestic Nature, among flowerpots, animal figures are staged as a kind of safari: a leopard lurks for an antelope, and the entire scene is watched by the awed eyes of a child. These moments capture the layered meaning of domestic routine: the blending of a mother's intimate, everyday reality with the imaginative world of a child at play.
Since relocating to Berlin in 2022, my work has become increasingly anchored in my immediate surroundings, focusing on the emotional landscape they portray. The domestic setting, filled with pets, potted plants, and familiar objects, becomes a stage for transformation, where ordinary surroundings take on narrative and emotional depth. My paintings reflect both the quiet banalities of home and the wild, inner landscapes that emerge within them.
www.ofraohana.com
