Michal Gil Ribak is an artist born in Haifa, currently living and working in Jerusalem. She specializes in painting, drawing, and printmaking. Her works are inspired by unique states of vision and the interplay between gaze and emotion, exploring the gap between appearance and reality. She primarily uses oil paints on wood panels and graphite on paper.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (2024). In 2020, she studied under artist Shahar Sivan at the “HaNeviim Workshop” in Haifa. In 2023, she held a solo exhibition as part of the Young Artist Wall program, curated by Paz Hadas, at “HaNeviim” in Haifa. Her group exhibitions include Art Vortex, curated by Alex Kranz at the Slovak Institute in Jerusalem (2024), Cultureversity at the Slovak Institute in Jerusalem (2023), Sustainability Exhibition at Hansen House in Jerusalem (2023), and Positif x Pavilion at the Bezalel Pavilion (2022).

Upon completing her studies, she was awarded the Haim Shiff Prize for Figurative Realistic Painting for graduates of the Fine Arts Department at Bezalel (2024).

Painting is the most immediate and natural way for me to respond to the visual experiences that surround me. I am always seeing—even when I close my eyes, I imagine, and when I sleep, I dream in vivid images. When awake, I never stop observing. Vision is not necessarily an active process; it simply happens.

I am fascinated by the layers a gaze carries, the behaviors and habits of the eye, and how vision transforms into recognition. Emotion and memory shape how things appear, while the physical movements of the body alter the gaze. Attention is dynamic and sensitive. Sometimes, painting bridges these gaps, and at other times, it deepens them.
My works are two-dimensional compositions of colors, shapes, lines, rhythms, and structures. Using oil paints, pastels, and graphite on paper, wood, and canvas, I deconstruct questions of light and perception while balancing coarseness, subtlety, ambiguity, and precision.