RAFAEL Y. HERMAN Israel, 1974

Rafael Yossef Herman's practice is characterized by a metaphysical curiosity and an investigation of light as a physical element and protagonist of space-time. By encapsulating the imperceivable and the imaginary, Herman’s recreated realities examine the limits of the surreal and transport us to a place that falls outside the range of everyday sight, engaging the viewer with that which he cannot see in night’s darkness, using absence as a visual vocabulary and recalling the environmental challenge of light pollution.

Herman grew up in Be'er Sheva studying classical music and the arts since the age of six. He graduated with a degree in economics from the University of Tel Aviv and studied painting and photography in Mexico and Chile while living across Latin America, before settling in Europe. While living in Italy, Herman became an artist invited by the Ville de Paris, where he currently lives.

Rafael Yossef Herman's works are in prominent international public and private collections including V&A Museum, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Salsali Museum of Dubai, MAXXI and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and he has had solo exhibitions at the Palazzo Reale, Milan (2006), MACRO museum at the Testaccio pavilion, Rome (2017), Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2018), Fondazione Sant’Elia, Palazzo Sant’Elia, Palermo (2022) and in the Spring of 2024 at SBC-Saidye Bronfman Center for contemporary art, Montreal.