Biography of Ilana Yahav

Ilana Yahav is a sand artist or sand animation artist. Her art is reflected in performances in front of a live audience, in video clips and in advertisements. It is a unique, minimalist art form that few artists worldwide engage in.

For many years, while continuing to develop as an artist, Ilana ran a studio that created grotesque and realistic latex puppets and specialized in special effects for movie productions and advertisements (a field that she had studied in Hollywood, New York and London). In her studio, Ilana created the puppets for a political satire program on the Israeli television named "Chartzufim",based on the UK's notorious "Spitting Image". As a sand artist, Ilana performed all over the world, in front of a diverse range of cultures and backgrounds: from small, local and intimate performances to huge and grand productions, such as a performance at the Kremlin, as well as performances before the King of Spain, the King of Belgium, and others.

Each performance requires lengthy preparations, starting with the many sketches that she makes in a notebook, and numerous experiments on the sand table itself. Here, the creation generally undergoes extensive changes until the final version is crystallized. In the performances, Ilana uses her hands to create images in sand on a transparent backlit table, while a video camera positioned above her conveys the emerging creation live to a giant screen that displays it to the audience. Light and music also form important elements of Ilana's creations. In her works, she uses colorful lights that emerge from under a transparent table and a soundtrack adapted specifically to the message and the sensations being conveyed in the work, and sometimes even composed and produced specially for this purpose.

Videos documenting Ilana's performances and works are disseminated over the Internet by her numerous fans around the world.

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