2013 – <em>Hilula</em>, Shai Azoulay

In this oil painting on canvas, Shai Azoulay (b.1971) explores the tradition of pilgrimage to the graves of Jewish saintly personae, in this case Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a second century tanna buried on Mount Meron. His tomb, a large building with sky-blue domes, as depicted here in miniature, is a pilgrimage site for hundreds of thousands on Lag b’Omer. Here, the tomb is in the artist’s home, decorated with portraits, including one of the artist himself, showing the internalization of piety and perhaps its potential to be all-encompassing. (Image courtesy of the artist)